New Home

[DakotaCowgirl]

Hubby and I are thinking about purchasing. We don't think we can leave this area in the next 3 years anyways (we have been here almost 2.)

The housing market in our location is at the tail end of the oil boom (lots of people moving up here for jobs) and a massive flood. We feel the houses are a bit inflated still' but, with interest rates going up, we are thinking it might be time.

We are looking at a house; but, it is lacking one thing that we feel is important......A/C. It doesn't have forced air heating so to put in central air....we feel it might not be worth the cost of the house.

What are deal breakers for you? What are something you look in a house?

We are going to talk with a mortgage lender to see what we qualify for (No debt but an auto loan and great credit score.) See what hubbys possible retirement check would cover.

[ThumperJane]

Typically they recommend a home loan payment not be more than 28% of your income before taxes. But the mortgage lender will help you better with the numbers. And you can shop around for different rates. As long as you do it within the same month time period. Each mortgage company will pull a credit score and look at everything in depth. If you do it in the same month, it won't affect your credit score as badly as if you do the shopping around over 3-4 months.
Deal breakers: No central heat/air; electric and plumbing have to be up to code, foundation is good. The rest for me is cosmetic.
Good luck in the house search!

[villanelle]

Make sure that you consider the full costs of home ownership. Mortgage is only one part. Property taxes, insurance, HOA if there is one (and those costs go up pretty frequently, IME), maintenance (which people tend to grossly underestimate since some years there can be very little and other years the fridge and dryer die, you need a new roof, and you have to have a plumber come out 3 times).

[PaUSMC]

Before you meet with a lender I would sit down and figure out your budget and what you know you will be able to spend on your home. Generally, no more than 25-30% of your take home pay is a good estimate (including mortgage, insurance, and taxes). Once you have that budget in your head you won't be as easily swayed by the lender, who will likely be willing to loan more than you should feel comfortable borrowing.

As far as deal breakers, foundation issues and the neighborhood were big ones with me. I actually backed out of a house after an inspection because of the river in the crawlspace and foundation problems. And I knew I wanted to live somewhere walkable and safe. Now everything else was fair game, but I enjoy remodeling so it was something I was looking for when I purchased. We installed forced air heat (will add AC soon) in DBs house last year ourselves and it was difficult to retrofit an old house, saved a ton doing it ourselves though.

[DakotaCowgirl]

Make sure that you consider the full costs of home ownership. Mortgage is only one part. Property taxes, insurance, HOA if there is one (and those costs go up pretty frequently, IME), maintenance (which people tend to grossly underestimate since some years there can be very little and other years the fridge and dryer die, you need a new roof, and you have to have a plumber come out 3 times).

We've been budgeting numbers. Our BAH would be 2300 right now and we are looking at a mortage around 1300 (1100 for house, 100 for insurance (aprox.) 100 for taxes). This would leave us around 1,000 for leftover. We asked about the aprox on the house and they quoted about 300 total for heating, garbage, water, ect. It was a yearly average budget. Granted, I would like to budget more. I would like to put the rest away into a savings until we hit 10 K and then put the rest into the house. We are trying to make it towards our retirement to have a good chunk paid off.

We are just talking right now; but, we spend more in gas for our family to go downtown (15 miles) for everything 7 days a week. This would be just hubby driving and I could get a better job in town if needed. There are more decisions like, do I still have a job in the school district and we are putting 500 a month away living on base (it is weird; but, working). We don't want to be upside down on a loan either and that could happen here.

We are thinking about passing on this house as it doesn't have a/c and that is a pretty big thing for us.

[ThumperJane]

We've been budgeting numbers. Our BAH would be 2300 right now and we are looking at a mortage around 1300 (1100 for house, 100 for insurance (aprox.) 100 for taxes). This would leave us around 1,000 for leftover. We asked about the aprox on the house and they quoted about 300 total for heating, garbage, water, ect. It was a yearly average budget. Granted, I would like to budget more. I would like to put the rest away into a savings until we hit 10 K and then put the rest into the house. We are trying to make it towards our retirement to have a good chunk paid off.

We are just talking right now; but, we spend more in gas for our family to go downtown (15 miles) for everything 7 days a week. This would be just hubby driving and I could get a better job in town if needed. There are more decisions like, do I still have a job in the school district and we are putting 500 a month away living on base (it is weird; but, working). We don't want to be upside down on a loan either and that could happen here.

We are thinking about passing on this house as it doesn't have a/c and that is a pretty big thing for us.

As my mother says: Central heat and a/c is no longer considered a "modern luxury", it is an essential necessity! She also says roughing it/camping is a Hilton without room service. lol!!!

[kt_bug]

Re: AC

I'm not sure how you feel about this but my parents recently put in a whole house fan. It's basically a big vent in the ceiling that sucks in air so at night or once it gets cooler outside than it is inside you open some windows and pull in all the cool evening air. Then turn it off in the morning and shut the windows so the cool air stays inside. I think it works pretty well. We have AC but almost never use it because it's more expensive and summers here are in the low to mid 90s, hitting 100 a handful of times. It's also reasonably cheap to install since no ducts have to be run, just a hole cut in the ceiling.