Found a House!!

[Elrohwen]

We found a house! We actually saw it a week ago, but the sellers were very slow in geting back to us and we didn’t get their counter offer until Friday. Their original price was pretty reasonable, but we offered less and they met us in the middle, which we’re happy about.

Now I need to call an inspector and get us in there this week.

What then? We’re so clueless about this house buying stuff! At least we have the mortgage thing buttoned up, but other than that I’m not sure what we do next. I need to check when our lease is up, but it’s either the beginning or end of June – I’ll have to call our landlord and tell him that we’re not resigning the lease this year.

I love the house. It’s a standard-type colonial from 2000 – there are a lot of them in this area and we knew that was generally what we wanted, but we never found the right one with the right lot. This one is on 7 acres – most of it is woods, but the yard part is nice and large and flat. We really wanted land if we could get it, so this is perfect for us. It’s in the really good school district, which means our taxes are quite high, but the price of the house was right so we’ll have to deal with it. If we have kids some day I’m sure we’ll be glad that we bought a house in the best school district. It’s about 15 minutes from work and halfway between friends’ houses, which is perfect. I’m so excited! I hope everything works out and we don’t lose it for some reason.

[Michelle&Lolli]

Congratulations!!!! So exciting!!! I guess you would start packing maybe? I have no clue what you do now either. lol But that’s so great!!

[Michelle&Lolli]

Arg! My browser is acting up,. Posted twice.  

[Sarita]

Congratulations! That’s so exciting.

[Elrohwen]

I’m really not looking forward to emptying our bank account for the downpayment 🙁 Houses are so expensive here and we really wanted to put down 20% – right now we have a bit more than 15% so we could get a loan for the rest, but my mom agreed to help us out and loan it to us interest free (of course we’d pay her some interest, even if she doesn’t want it). It’s a lot of money though! The amount ends up doubling after closing costs, escrow, etc are added in. Blah. We’re saving at a good rate so if we don’t close for 2 more months we’ll be able to make some of that up, but I still hate spending money! I wish I lived some place that had houses for only $200k.

[Sarita]

I know what you mean! That initial downpayment hurts…is the agreement to wait 2 months to close?

Okay, so I would call around and start getting insurance quotes as well. The insurance company may want to inspect the home to make sure it’s insurable – the insurance inspection is different from the home inspection by the way. Insurance companies want to do their own inspection since they are taking on the risk. Remember too the cheapest quote is not always the best coverage for your home. Make sure it has replacement cost on the home and the contents.

[jerseygirl]

Good news Elrohwen! I hope everything goes thru smoothly for you guys. I imagine the waiting part is not going to be easy but hooray for not having to look any more!

Sarita, I’ve never even thought about that aspect, was only familiar with building inspections. Very sage advice. : )

[Elrohwen]

Thanks Jersey!

Sarita, that is really good advice! I didn’t know that the insurance company inspected it as well. I’d prefer to go with the company that currently insures our cars and apartment, but I’ll call to get a few different rates (our current company has been the cheapest in everything we’ve insured so far, but that might change since we’re moving across the state line). When do we need to have insurance lined up? Before we sign the contract? After?

We put on the offer that we would close in 60 days, so I assume that’s still the plan. I wouldn’t mind closing at the beginning of June so that we would have a month to pack up and move things. If we close any earlier we might have to pay extra rent (there’s nothing in our lease about getting out of it, so it would be up to our landlord)

[Sarita]

You need it before closing. Since insurance is state regulated and you are moving from one state to another you will need to get a different policy for the car as well since it will be garaged there. Your current agent may or may not be licensed in the new state so the sooner you call them and see if they can write it the better. If not, I would go ahead and get quotes as soon as possible and make a decision as soon as you can. The mortgage company is going to want you to get the insurance lined up before you close because they need to figure this in the closing. Also it will be one thing you can check off your list.

You are going to have to get the home inspected by your inspector first and you may be negotiating any repairs too.

Well 60 days is not that far away :~)

[Elrohwen]

That’s a good point – my CT agent probably can’t cover us anymore. One more thing I’ll have to look up!

I’m still waiting for confirmation from my agent, but our inspection is tentatively scheduled for tomorrow morning. Yay!

[Elrohwen]

The homeowners are being kind of frustrating. First, they didn’t get back to us with a counter offer for about 5 days, which was kind of ridiculous. Now they’re saying we have to get an inspection within 5 days, which puts us at Saturday – we’re going to be gone Friday and Saturday and Thursday isn’t a good day for us, but they don’t want to do it either Tuesday or Wednesday. Grrr. I was planning to skip some meetings at work to get this done and I find out the owner won’t let us do it because she has a work meeting on Wednesday morning. Oh, and the reason her meeting is important is because she doesn’t want to leave the house while we’re there, even though owners are not supposed to be there for the inspections.

I guess I just figured these people would be happy to sell their home, but they seem to like making it difficult for us. It was annoying enough that when we visited it the first time the woman was there with four kids so it was impossible to really look at things closely or make many comments about the house.

[Sarita]

Yes, that is not proper selling your house etiquette. Is your realtor saying 7 days – is that what is in the contract or the current homeowner? Normally it is within 5 or 7 days in most cases to schedule the inspection. What is your realtor saying about them being difficult?

[Elrohwen]

My agent was the one who said inspection within 5 days – apparently that was the homeowner’s request because I don’t remember that being in the offer we signed (though it could’ve been and I could be forgetting). I don’t mind doing it right away, but we were all set to do it tomorrow and the homeowner wants to push us back 3 days.

Our agent hasn’t said anything about them being difficult yet, though she did say that letting the homeowner stay during the inspection is poor form. She’s supposed to call me back and let me know about doing it Wednesday afternoon, but it’s been 15min so I wonder if she’s negotiating with the listing agent about it. I was planning to skip work meetings of my own to get the inspection done, but now I’m feeling less generous.

[Lintini]

7 acres!!!! *swoon*

Aww man sorry they are being difficult. I would have thought they would have been more than happy too if you accepted their counter offer. How strange. I really hope this works out well for you! *keeping fingers and bunny ears crossed*

[Elrohwen]

Thanks Lindsey! I’m so excited to have that much land! A large section of the woods are protected wetlands, so nobody can build back there. It does mean that they could be swampy, but unlike another house we liked that was next to wetlands the yard was completely dry. It was just a day after we got huge rains and tons of flooding and the woods looked wet (the woods everywhere seemed to be underwater) but the yard and basement were perfectly dry, so that was a good thing. I can’t wait to get a puppy and let it run around our yard!!

The road has “hawk” in its name, and it’s funny because when we pulled up outside we saw a red hawk circling fairly low to the ground. I guess the bunnies won’t be exploring the great outdoors (not that they like being outside anyway).

[Sarita]

Hmmm…you may be required to buy flood insurance – double check with the agent on this. If it’s in a flood zone it will be a requirement of the mortgage. If that’s the case, let your insurance agent know so this can be quoted as well.

[Elrohwen]

Oh yeah, good point! We talked about that with our agent when we were thinking of making an offer on that other house, but she didn’t mention it for this one. I’ll need her to find out.

I also learned that some towns require a special $600 water testing during the inspection (the other towns require the standard water test). By the address this house is in one of those towns, but pays taxes to a different district, so I’m not sure. I’m hoping my agent can answer that when she calls me back. Saving $600 would be nice!

[Monkeybun]

Congrats!!!

The lady being there while inspection is going on is not cool, she could interfere with the inspection, cause the guy to miss stuff, etc. There’s reasons why they aren’t there when it goes on

[Lis]

Elrohwen – come live down here if you want a house under 200k! HJ and I have played around with buying a house this fall and living there with some friends of mine. A 3 bedroom foreclosure house a block from campus we really like is 38k. Others in sketchier neighborhoods are 25-30k.
Non-foreclosures in my neighborhood alone range from 125k to 500k, but my neighborhood is one of the nicest in my city.

That’s annoying that she insists on being there.

[LittlePuffyTail]

[Elrohwen]

Thanks guys! I agree it’s so annoying that she wants to be there. I’ll be even more annoyed if all of the kids are there, because I don’t think 10 year old will be able to go and sit in one room and avoid us – they’re going to end up sitting right at the kitchen table the whole time or something (that’s what they did when we saw the house the first time).

Lis, we totally need to move! Unfortunately we like our jobs here and love our friends (and the area) so we’ll deal with it for now. I’m hoping we can move to upstate NY eventually and just buy a house with cash. It’s also frustrating that there aren’t any small houses here that aren’t really sketchy. I wouldn’t mind buying a house smaller than a four bedroom colonial, but the only ones that exist are teeny, not updated, and in lousy areas. We could buy a townhouse, but we really want a yard and privacy so that won’t work. Four bedroom colonial it is! I don’t know what we’re going to do with all of those bedrooms.

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