House-hunting: kinda fun, but also terrifying

[blingbunny10]

Currently trying to sell our first home and buy a new one at the same time. It's crazy....

I'd love to hear your best advice about selling, house hunting, or moving! I've been through the search/buying process once before, but it feels different this time around. Probably because I'm especially terrified about the prospect of having to find THE house that I will likely live in for a decade-plus and raise a family in. What should I be looking for? What do I need to know?

(I asked my mother, and she is big on getting a house that "sits comfortably" on the lot. What? )

 

[kenny]

Time pressure can result in poor decisions.
Sell, then rent, then buy.
Less pressure and stress and, being in no hurry, you'll buy a better house.

Buy the crappiest house in the best neighborhood you can afford.

 

[blingbunny10]

Sell, then rent, then buy.
Less pressure and stress and, being in no hurry, you'll buy a better house.

I was hoping to avoid renting by selling and doing a rent-back from the new owners to give us an extra month or two if we can't find a new house in time. I don't even want to think about how we would move twice (three times?) by selling and renting/putting stuff in storage and then moving again.

Buy the crappiest house in the best neighborhood you can afford.

I like this one! I'm trying to keep my husband on the straight-and-narrow in terms of neighborhoods I want to live in, but I think he's more easily won over by specific houses (especially the ones that have basement man caves, lol).

 

[PintoBean]

We found our house by accident! We planned on checking out two open houses. We ended up being early for the second one, so we drove around town, and decided to check out the open house (signage alerted us) down the road to kill time. Guess which house we bought?

My suggestion, be flexible... Check realty websites and pick out a few open houses to check out with time to roam around the neighborhood and do some "ad hoc" open houses!

 

[dk168]

Location, location, location; that's the emphasis over here in the UK.

I would advise having a list of "must have/need" and a list of "desired/want", and look for a house in a good location that ticks all the boxes for the first list, and as many boxes as possible on the second.

All all the life's big events, and I had them all with divorce, death of a parent, death of a partner, new jobs and relocations; and found relocation the most stressful.

Good luck!

DK

 

[the_mother_thing]

Buying:
Location location location - not only in terms of your happiness when living in the home, but also come time for potential resale.

Don't underestimate the value of ample storage in your new home, especially while raising a family. Cosmetics (paint, carpet) can be easily changed; structured storage (ample closets, cabinets & attic space) is priceless!

I've owned three homes, with my last (which I am moving back into this coming week ) by far my favorite, primarily due to both of the above, something I seriously underestimated in my current residence (so glad I didn't buy this house!)

Selling/Moving
Being someone who has moved about 15 times due to military service and various job transfers, I can say that an excellent moving strategy (which can help your home selling experience as well) is to start decluttering NOW. If you don't absolutely need it between now and move day, box that stuff up and put it in storage. Not storage in your home, but get an offsite unit. That way it doesn't clutter up your current home with boxes, which will also make the space appear smaller to potential buyers. I am about to move again, and for the last 6 weeks, we have dedicated each weekend to "layered packing". As we get closer to the move, there are more and more things we don't need on hand until we move, and they have been packed up, labeled and stored. We now are down to the last minute stuff, which is largely packed already but in accessible, open bins/boxes (yes, this week, we are living out of boxes). But it has created an almost stress free moving experience, and I am not sweating move day, except for the forecasted heat.

Also, if you can afford to do so, rather than buying boxes, scope Walmart and Lowes for deals on Rubbermaid rough tote bins, which are entirely reusable and invaluable for future holiday decorations, kids toys, seasonal clothes storage, etc. I snagged a deal on walmart's website for a case of 12 good sized totes for $99, and ordered two cases, shipped to my home for free. WIN!

Ziploc/space bags are your friend. Use them to compress pack linens, towels, clothes, etc, which take up less space in storage and the truck come move day.

Remember that when potential buyers are looking at your home, they don't care how you live in the space; they need to see how they can live in it. Remove personal effects, family pictures, declutter, keep counters clear of everything, and make darn sure every nook and cranny is as clean as possible while you are living in the home during its time on the market.

Best wishes for a happy home buying (and selling) experience!

 

[missy]

Currently trying to sell our first home and buy a new one at the same time. It's crazy....

I'd love to hear your best advice about selling, house hunting, or moving! I've been through the search/buying process once before, but it feels different this time around. Probably because I'm especially terrified about the prospect of having to find THE house that I will likely live in for a decade-plus and raise a family in. What should I be looking for? What do I need to know?

(I asked my mother, and she is big on getting a house that "sits comfortably" on the lot. What? )

Hi blingbunny, this is exactly what we did in 2011 and it worked out perfectly. We found our "dream" beach house and that was the impetus to put our current beach house on the market though it was not really ready for selling. So we quickly finished what we needed to in our current house and put it up for sale while we put a conditional offer on the dream house. The sellers of our dream house wouldn't accept on condition of our house sale though but said if our house sold before they got another offer they accepted our offer amount. And somehow it all worked out.

We didn't price our house at an unfair high price nor did we price it too little so it sold fairly quickly because it was priced fairly. And then we were able to buy the other house. In fact we went to closing for both homes (sale and purchase) the very same day. Haha how is that for good timing.

The reason I share this with you is that everyone told us it would not work out. Too stressful and too much going on at once. But we thought (well I thought) if it was meant to be it would work out and it did! So sending you good luck dust and hoping it works out perfectly for you. Whatever that means for you and your family. Good luck!

Just want to add that though I am sure you already know this no house is perfect. So find one that has what you need and want knowing you can change other aspects that are not perfect. For example our kitchen here needs to be renovated and I know that is a relatively easy fix so it didn't prevent us from buying the house. This house is also lacking a workshop space for my dh and his woodworking hobby. That is something we can add so again it didn't deter us from the purchase. The one thing that was the most important for us was to be on the water. That is something we could not change and this house had it so that was one of the non negotiables because you cannot change location. So though it was/is our dream house it was not perfect because nothing perfect really exists no matter the budget IMO. It comes down to finding what is perfect enough knowing you can and will change things down the road as you can/want to change them.

 

[cflutist]

Time pressure can result in poor decisions.
Sell, then rent, then buy.
Less pressure and stress and, being in no hurry, you'll buy a better house.

Buy the crappiest house in the best neighborhood you can afford.

I agree with Kenny's advice as far as the crappiest house in the best neighborhood.
We made the mistake of doing the opposite and over-improved for the neighborhood.

Also, if you can swing it, we bought first, then put the old house on the market.
While we were paying double mortgages, we also had the luxury of taking our
time to move the smaller stuff from the old to the new house (although we hired
movers to move the furniture).

 

[blingbunny10]

PintoBean -- Thanks, we drove out to a few open houses today and I was surprised at how many other open houses I saw that I hadn't seen listed online!

dk169 -- Thanks, that's also good advice. I'm finding it hard to pin down the must have/need list and stick to it. I keep visiting different houses and seeing so many other features/amenities that I don't think I NEED, but would be so very satisfying to have.

 

[blingbunny10]

JoCoJenn -- Thanks for the advice; do you sound like a relocation pro!
Gosh, I hadn't considered buying reusable storage.... I will have a basement and attic in the new house(which I don't have now), so reusable bins would definitely be something I would actually use! And you're right, I should really start boxing stuff up now before things get too crazy. I've been so focused on finding a new house that I haven't really done much here except making minor repairs and touch ups.

 

[blingbunny10]

Well, I went out and bought 10 18-gallon Rubbermaid bins. (Ugh, can I just take a minute to rant a bit about service these days? After waiting for over half an hour at Home Depot and inquiring with about 5 different employees about checking in the back for these bins, we ended up using a ladder to climb up 2 shelves and rip open a new box of bins ourselves).

I've packed a bunch of books and pictures, and I already feel like I've made some packing progress! So thanks again for the tip. The realtor is coming over this week to see what else needs to be done before we can show our house. I'm hoping we can show the house with a pared down selection of our own furniture, rather than using staging furniture.

 

[blingbunny10]

Time pressure can result in poor decisions.
Sell, then rent, then buy.
Less pressure and stress and, being in no hurry, you'll buy a better house.

Buy the crappiest house in the best neighborhood you can afford.

I agree with Kenny's advice as far as the crappiest house in the best neighborhood.
We made the mistake of doing the opposite and over-improved for the neighborhood.

Also, if you can swing it, we bought first, then put the old house on the market.
While we were paying double mortgages, we also had the luxury of taking our
time to move the smaller stuff from the old to the new house (although we hired
movers to move the furniture).

cflutist -- Maybe you don't feel comfortable answering this, but do you think the double mortgage situation led to a higher interest rate or slightly worse terms for your second mortgage? I would love to just be able to put an offer in on a house we like, but I feel like we might get better loan terms if we wait to sell first. I guess we could refinance after the sale, but I understand that process costs a bundle of money in itself?

 

[PintoBean]

Oh... Double mortgage! How could I forget... we are in NY and this is what we dealt with, mortgage-wise.

We have a mortgage on the co-op that we are in the process of selling. We didn't want to sell first and then buy because I wanted to get the renovations done in the new place before moving in. We spoke to the sellers broker, and we spoke with our attorney to flesh out our borrowing options. Our attorney told us that big banks don't want to lend to private individuals nowadays. He said we could try bank "x" because he knew a mortgage broker there that was trying to prove himself. Otherwise avoid the rest of the banks. We weren't thrilled with HSBC, our mortgage lender, especially after we refinanced a few years ago. We dealt with misinformation and inexperienced HSBC reps. Two years ago, SIL went through Wachovia for her first home and it was a similarly nightmarish situation that lasted about three months.

The seller's broker had a guy who could do thirty day close, even if we had a mortgage already. He works for the money store. My attorney said that they probably would be our best bet for securing a mortgage despite having one already, and securing it I'm a timely manner. He also recommended checking out credit unions because they are more likely to lend in comparison to the bigger banks, but he did think that the money store was th best bet for us ultimately.

Sorry if this is ramble... Tired but can't fall asleep... So on PS...

 

[partgypsy]

My view, you have to like the neighborhood. Don't buy even a really nice house in an area that you don't care to live or you feel may be going downhill. I guess this is similar advice to what Kenny said (and what we did).
My husband is very DIY and I'm not too picky, so that worked for us.

Decide on the things you cannot change, like the neighborhood, how the house "sits" on the land or the lot, overall square footage and hitting the minimum number of bedrooms, bathrooms you need. Everything else after that is gravy and preferences. Obviously go with houses that need less work or maintenance than ones that do, but everyone knows that.

 

[telephone89]

I actually love house shopping! I think its so fun (provided no time crunch). Hoping you find your dream house sometime soon, and with minimal headaches!