First home

[Galaril]

As noted in my old thread on moving to the Denver area my wife, kids, and I have been looking to buy our first home and relocate out in the Denver area since June of 2006. I had n't realized it was that long till I lloked my old thread on the topic here (lol)..........Anyways, my wife and I went out to Denver on Monday and today we just got the word that the home put an offer on was accpeted by the seller so we are new first time home owners. I can't complain since we got the larger home we wanted in the area we wanted for a price about 70-80k below market price and about 30k less than we expecting to spend. The house we got was only on the market for 17 days including today and we were the first and only ones to look at it. We came with an offer at full asking price since the price already was discounted due to the seller having to relocate for work ASAP. We also wanted and got 3% closing costs which was great. In the end, the seller was happy because he gets a 30k bonus from his company for selling the home within 2 months of going on the market. Otherwise, the company would be obligated, due to the relocation, to buy the home from their guy and then resell the it.

For anyone who knows the Colorado area, we bought our home out in Castle Rock up the hill in Castle Woods Ranch at 6600' with a nice open space behind us. Anyways, since it is our first home and hopefully the home our kids grow up in for the next twenty years it is pretty exciting. It has been a good two weeks between this anad the new job so I will have to consider not jinxing us anymore.

[Cringer]

How many times do I have to say congrats? Gawd! Attention whore.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Cringer

How many times do I have to say congrats? Gawd! Attention whore.

Actually it is opportunity to artificially pad my post count

[Cringer]

And mine I guess. Thanks.

(next you say "Your welcome" to further pad yours, and then I say 'No problem.")

[JeeberD]

Congrats!

My wife and I actually just had an offer accepted on our (hopefully) soon to be first home as well. The Texas housing market is still pretty dang solid, so we weren't able to get the deal that you got (in fact, we had two other houses snagged out from underneath us before we found this one), but we're very, very happy. Now hopefully the inspection, appraisal, and lender approval all go as expected and in a month and a half we'll actually be in the sucker!

[wade moore]

Congrats!

I'm on the verge of selling my first home and it's very exciting going through the whole process again.

[Raiders Army]

Congraulations. We'll be moving here in the next month and will buy our first home as well. We just don't know where.

[Buccaneer]

Nice work!

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

Congrats!

My wife and I actually just had an offer accepted on our (hopefully) soon to be first home as well. The Texas housing market is still pretty dang solid, so we weren't able to get the deal that you got (in fact, we had two other houses snagged out from underneath us before we found this one), but we're very, very happy. Now hopefully the inspection, appraisal, and lender approval all go as expected and in a month and a half we'll actually be in the sucker!

Originally Posted by wade moore

Congrats!

I'm on the verge of selling my first home and it's very exciting going through the whole process again.

Originally Posted by Raiders Army

Congraulations. We'll be moving here in the next month and will buy our first home as well. We just don't know where.

Good luck to all three of you guys. No matter where you are it si a great time to buy a home as long as the financing works out. My lender send that it is a good thing we bought when we did since the requirements even for those with excellent credit is getting tight. If you canput 20% all the better but I think most people don't have that luxury we for example only did 10%.

[JeeberD]

We're putting down a little over 10%. When we first got pre-approved I only applied for a $130,000 loan with $20k down, but after looking at homes we found that it was going to be difficult to find something that we really liked in that price range. So I called USAA up and told them I wanted to change to a $150k loan with $15k down...and I was nervous that they were going to turn us down. But I was on hold for less than five minutes and he came back and said we were good to go. Whew. And we're actually going to be putting down $19k since the house we found is $169k...



Where are you moving to, RA? Back east?

[JeeberD]

We got the final lender approval today (thank god for USAA). Now it's pretty much just the inspection and appraisal that have to go well for us...

*crosses fingers*

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

We got the final lender approval today (thank god for USAA). Now it's pretty much just the inspection and appraisal that have to go well for us...

*crosses fingers*

Good news. Congrats.

[JeeberD]

The inspection went off without anything too serious (the only issues were a loose toilet, a breaker box that needed a minor fix, and a minor roof issue). While we were there for that the wife took mondo pix of the place. Here they are if anyone's interested...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/meckber...7604326248396/

The appraisal was Saturday and we should be finding out the results tomorrow or Thursday. Our realtor talked to the appraiser yesterday and he said that everything looked good to him, but I guess our lender has the final say on that.

[Cap Ologist]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

The inspection went off without anything too serious (the only issues were a loose toilet, a breaker box that needed a minor fix, and a minor roof issue). While we were there for that the wife took mondo pix of the place. Here they are if anyone's interested...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/meckber...7604326248396/

The appraisal was Saturday and we should be finding out the results tomorrow or Thursday. Our realtor talked to the appraiser yesterday and he said that everything looked good to him, but I guess our lender has the final say on that.

Welcome to the Mound! And when is OG going to open a restaurant here? We bought here last May, and like it quite a bit.

[JeeberD]

Oh crap, I forgot you were up there now! Where in The Mound do y'all live?

The wife and I were joking the other day that the OG needs to open up a restaurant in that new shopping complex at 407 and Long Prairie, and then make me a manager there. Doubtful that they'll do the former, though, with the Denton and Lewisville restaurants where they are...

[Lorena]

That's pretty damn awesome, grats Galaril and Jeebs!

[Cap Ologist]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

Oh crap, I forgot you were up there now! Where in The Mound do y'all live?

The wife and I were joking the other day that the OG needs to open up a restaurant in that new shopping complex at 407 and Long Prairie, and then make me a manager there. Doubtful that they'll do the former, though, with the Denton and Lewisville restaurants where they are...

We live pretty close to Churchill, off of Cross Timbers and Kirkpatrick.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

The inspection went off without anything too serious (the only issues were a loose toilet, a breaker box that needed a minor fix, and a minor roof issue). While we were there for that the wife took mondo pix of the place. Here they are if anyone's interested...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/meckber...7604326248396/

The appraisal was Saturday and we should be finding out the results tomorrow or Thursday. Our realtor talked to the appraiser yesterday and he said that everything looked good to him, but I guess our lender has the final say on that.

Congrats.

[JeeberD]

Originally Posted by Cap Ologist

We live pretty close to Churchill, off of Cross Timbers and Kirkpatrick.

Oh damn, we're practically neighbors!

[JeeberD]

Dola-

The wife says that we have to get together for dinner some time. I guess it's up to you to see if you can convince your woman that it wouldn't be so "strange"...

[JeeberD]

It's closing day!!!

Stupid leaseback, though...we don't actually get possession of the house until the seventh.

[PilotMan]

Well, I gotta jump on this bandwagon. Congrats Jeebs on your closing. You must be excited.

Now to my own story. I am sure that some of you know that things have been tight in the airline industry, and as a result, my family ( all 5 of us) has been living in the same 1150 sqft duplex for 5 and a half years.

Through diciplined financial decisions and a hope that the future is on the rise we finally decided that now was the right time to pull the trigger. About a month ago, after a couple of months of searching we found a house that was in forclosure and in a great neighborhood. It only had two things going against it. First was the pepto bismal pink, bronze and gold kitchen and family room:



The second was the fairly minor roof damage on the back of the house.



Surprisingly, the seller (bank in Milwaukee) agreed to fix the problem and we have been trying to close the deal. We were going to close last Friday, but things didn't get done in time. So now we are trying to get it done by this upcoming thursday.

We also are getting to take advantage of a downpayment and closing cost assistance program in KY that will take care of that for us.

In the end, we are getting the house for 10k less than that previous owners paid for it when it was newly built 7 years ago. I figure in a couple of years we could be sitting on some nice equity, without a whole lot of effort.

It has been a stressful couple of weeks, but hopefully, by the end of this week we will be the new owners of our first house as well.

[Eaglesfan27]

Congrats Jeeber and Pilotman

[Swaggs]

We are preparing to sell our first home. Planning on putting it on the market in the next few weeks.

Anyone have any advice? My wife and I are fairly stressed over the whole situation.

[MikeVic]

Nice.

[JeeberD]

Congrats, Pilotman! Very nice that you were able to get the bank to pay for repairs...

[PilotMan]

I should have made a dynasty about this whole process. My last post in this thread was on the 4th. We finally closed yesterday! What a painful two week wait for everyone to get their stuff all together. Finally! It's done!

And of course today, my dog, who is 10 and much wider then she thinks, got herself stuck in under the deck. It took almost three hours of digging to get her fat butt out.

Funny, in retrospect, but when your on a tight schedule, that kind of thing isn't very funny.

We are officially homeowners now though. Hopefully things settle down a little now that it's over.

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

Where are you moving to, RA? Back east?

Sorry, didn't see this until now (I visit certain threads sporadically). We're moving to Lawton, OK. This weekend, we're driving there to look at houses. We'll probably move at the end of June/early July, so we're pretty excited considering the craphole military housing we've been living in. We can't even fit a couch into our living room.

[Eaglesfan27]

Congrats, Pilotman

[MikeVic]

So I saw my first two houses last night. First one was absolutely brutal. Second one was better, but there's no way it could have been worse. Geez.

[Telle]

Originally Posted by MikeVic

So I saw my first two houses last night. First one was absolutely brutal. Second one was better, but there's no way it could have been worse. Geez.

I bet RendeR and I have seen worse. One of the houses we looked at had what appeared to be a teenage girl's room painted all black with seemingly satanic stuff scrawled over it. Then it looked like she deliberately removed steps going up to the attic to keep people from coming up there, and it was even worse in there than her bedroom (I didn't go up, but RendeR shudders just thinking about it).

That and the house had a floor furnace.

[Mustang]

Pilotman, which bank in Milwaukee was it?

[st.cronin]

I think its worse when the realtor shows you a house listed at over twice the price you told them you could afford. That happened to us several times when we were shopping.

[Telle]

That's a pretty sucky realtor.

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by Telle

a teenage girl's room painted all black

Nothing that 10 or 12 coats of paint wouldn't cover up.


We are going to try putting our house on the market here in the next few weeks (I have to finish a few things this weekend). Should be interesting although my wife somewhat knows the realtor so hopefully we can avoid alot of the typical junk that happens

[stevew]

Jeez, pilotman, that's an ugly pink room. I'm guessing that one gets re-done the first time you have a spare minute.

[Raiders Army]

Here's our house that we agreed to buy:



We accepted the builder's counteroffer and it will be complete by July 3rd...err, I should say it should be complete by July 3rd. We're excited about how much we'll be in debt!

[st.cronin]

Wow, love that exterior, RA. Me is jealous.

[Swaggs]

Great looking house.

I'd negotiate for some grass, though.

[Eaglesfan27]

Congrats, that looks like a great house.

[johnnyshaka]

Very nice, RA!!

[mattlanta]

Congrats on the new purchase, man. Hope you and your family the best wishes.

[Raiders Army]

Thanks everyone. Re-sized to make the pic less obnoxious. The yard isn't graded yet, but will be done by the time we move in. Yes, grass is the first thing we'll do with the yard.

[lordscarlet]

Looks great.

[JeeberD]

Very nice. Congrats!

[Mustang]

Looks nice.

How big is the lot? Or is it just an illusion that it looks like your closest neighbor would be 1 county over?


We are having realtors over the next few weeks to talk to them so, hopefully our house is up on the market here in a few weeks.

[terpkristin]

I've been half-assedly looking for about 3 months for a townhouse here in Ashburn. Two weeks ago, I got myself a realtor and today I made an offer on a house. I don't think I'll get it, but I'm ok with that. It feels almost like a relief to have made an offer for the first time. Now I know the routine, and know that even after making an offer, I don't have regrets.

The housing market has definitely come down here in Northern Virginia, but in Ashburn, it's still pretty darn pricy, especially for a single gal. I wasn't expecting to find something I'd put an offer on so quickly, I'm almost more afraid of having the offer accepted than rejected.

/tk

[dacman]

I also just started the process of buying my first house -- can't afford much, but I live in an area where houses are pretty cheap and choices are a plenty. Still, being single and unattached, I'm just looking at a 3-4 bedroom ranch -- anything to end a stretch of 8 of the last 11 years in an apt.

Jeebs -- did using USAA as a lender complicate things any? How did their process work? Did they actually have someone at closing? Just wondering since my dad got me a USAA membership last year and I currently use them for car insurance.

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by Mustang

Looks nice.

How big is the lot? Or is it just an illusion that it looks like your closest neighbor would be 1 county over?


We are having realtors over the next few weeks to talk to them so, hopefully our house is up on the market here in a few weeks.

Our lot is one acre. Looks big from the pic though.

Originally Posted by dacman

Jeebs -- did using USAA as a lender complicate things any? How did their process work? Did they actually have someone at closing? Just wondering since my dad got me a USAA membership last year and I currently use them for car insurance.

We used USAA. My wife did the whole deal, but from what I understand it was pretty painless and easy. The only thing she had a minor complaint about was the time on the telephone. They won't have anyone there at closing. Their main office is in San Antonio so unless you're buying your house there, I'd really doubt anyone shows up.

[Swaggs]

Update on my house:

We put the house on the market during the last week in May (Memorial Day weekend) and got one offer the first weekend. We went back and forth with offers and ended up about $2000 away from where we wanted to be, so we quit negotiating. I think our realtor was POed.

The following weekend, we got an offer for our full asking price minus their closing costs. So far, the buyers have had an appraisor visit and, today, they had an inspector come over. We will supposedly get his report tomorrow and then, I guess, they can ask for any repairs that they think are necessary and we have three days to decide whether or not to pay for them. Hopefully, they didn't find anything major. I cannot think of anything, but am worried anyway.

We close in early July.