I just started the home buying process and I’m already getting impatient

"Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle" (1500sand535) 01/03/2018 at 10:07 • Filed to: None

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Last year my family moved from Oregon, land of inept gas pumpers, legal weed and lots of good driving because at least where I was they couldn’t pay sheriffs for backcountry road patrol; to Minnesota where we were born and raised. Along with the move we have had the opportunity to save for our first home. We have a down payment saved up and are working on closing costs(could borrow from my 401k if needed in the meantime, although I’m hoping to get them covered by seller).

We even found a neighborhood we like. Affordable, diverse, pretty safe, some green space, close to downtown, great mix of 1920-30s houses that are beautiful and 60-70s houses that would need less love in the future. Although very few houses have 2 car garages but they tend to be the newer ones. It’s well liked but not trendy so there shouldn’t be any sort of crazy rush to get an offer in.

But it being the dead of winter in Minnesota, not many listings are up. Only one house in the neighborhood in our budget is active right now and it’s outdated but has a two car garage(although part of me thinks it’s exactly the type of house we could scoop up at a discount with closing costs split/paid). So I need to wait, which I’m awful at.

928s for your time(manual, for sale in Iowa)

haveacarortwoorthree2 > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 01/03/2018 at 10:37

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What’s the best thing to ever come out of Minnesota? An empty bus!

Sorry, former Iowan here. The rivalry is real! The hardest thing to do when buying a house is to be patient. I drove my wife and our realtor (who also was a friend) mad when we bought our first house. I decided what I thought the house was worth and would not budge an inch above that. We lost three houses (one of which was really great) because we lost bidding contests. But we ended up with a good deal on a nice house — after doing a bit of remodeling, we ended up selling it a few years later for 40% more than what we paid, with a 25% ROI after considering our remodeling costs. That allowed us to buy the brand new house we’ve been in for the last 15 years.

Straightsix9904 > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 01/03/2018 at 10:41

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As somebody that has bought two houses. Buy one with good “bones.” If the A/c is 45 years old, roof hasn’t been replaced in 35 years and they are on the original water heater, you’re gonna have a bad time. You can tell when a house that has been well cared for. Just research and know what to spot.

OPPOsaurus WRX > haveacarortwoorthree2 01/03/2018 at 10:48

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i’m pretty sure neither of the realtors a we’ve used so far would talk to me again. I bet she went out and had champagne after the closing. the whole fucking bottle.

During thew whole process I was told we couldn’t be too strong cuz of the seller’s feelings. The seller wouldn’t budge on price and we sat there and waited for open house after open house without her getting any other offers. It wasn’t until our buyer was going to walk that I just said screw it and agreed to her price. when the seller tried delaying our closing “cuz they were busy” I called up my closing attorney and told her i didn’t give a shit about the old fucking lady’s feelings she could go fuck herself. We would be closing on the agreed upon closing date.

sorry for the language, you got me fired up again.

JustAnotherG6 > haveacarortwoorthree2 01/03/2018 at 10:49

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Your joke has me wondering... Why is it empty? b/c the Iowans on it realized MN is better?

Do you know what Iowa stands for, right? Idiot Out Wandering Around.

As a current MN resident, Graduate from Iowa State Univeristy, and former resident of NE (Omaha) I have heard plenty of Iowa jokes. The best one target the Hawkeyes btw.

JustAnotherG6 > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 01/03/2018 at 10:52

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2 car garages in the first ring suburbs of Minneapolis are tough to come by. We had just moved from a 40's rambler with a 2 1/2 car garage (built in 2001) near the State Fair to a 70's two story a bit north of where we were with a 2 car garage. I can’t express how much of a difference that 1/2 car makes.

Textured Soy Protein > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 01/03/2018 at 10:55

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I’m in Madison, WI and at a similar stage in the process. My wife and I have been wanting a house for a while, we’ve made some not-quite-serious moves on it in the past, but now we’re getting more serious.

My non-scientific observations, based on following the listings here, and being ranted at by realtors at open houses:

Nobody wants to try and sell a house in winter if they don’t have to, because nobody wants to deal with moving in winter if they can avoid it.

The listings will start picking up around February/March and everyone goes house crazy in May-July. Desperation sets in around August/September because people are thinking they need to wrap shit up ASAP before the weather gets crappy again.

Realtors love saying bullshit about THE MARKET IS SO HOT RIGHT NOW YOU NEED TO MOVE ON THIS HOUSE IMMEDIATELY, and even if they’re acting as your buyer’s agent, more often than not they’re still trying to push you along in the process. There might be some good ones who will truly consult with you and take the I GOTTA SELL YOU A HOUSE hat off but I’ve yet to find one.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 01/03/2018 at 10:55

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As a seller with a house on the market, I’d like to make a suggestion. If you want the seller to split or pay the full closing costs, you will have better luck if you offer the full asking price. Remember, that will be money that will come directly out of the seller’s pocket whereas you may be able to finance some or all of those closing costs with your loan. 

haveacarortwoorthree2 > JustAnotherG6 01/03/2018 at 11:00

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Yeah, no one cares enough about my school — UNI — to create jokes about it. Brother graduated from ISU.

haveacarortwoorthree2 > JustAnotherG6 01/03/2018 at 11:03

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We’ve got a 3 car garage — Texas, y’all — and I couldn’t imagine going backwards at this point. Not only would the wife’s car have to stay outside (more realistic, I’d be down to 1 car that I really like and a daily beater), but I have no idea where we’d put all the bikes, etc. Of course, you guys in the Midwest have basements, so that helps a lot for storage.

Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/03/2018 at 11:16

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Thanks. Yeah, I generally assumed that to get closing costs covered(for a house that is priced right) we would have to offer asking. The house I mentioned above is about $10k over market for its condition I think; they would probably say otherwise.

shop-teacher > Straightsix9904 01/03/2018 at 11:18

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Yeah, that stuff is wildly expensive, and nets very little in terms of raising the value of the house.

shop-teacher > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 01/03/2018 at 11:22

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Patience young grasshopper. When we bought our house in 2010, we looked at something like 100 houses. It was miserable. Ultimately we scored a great deal on a place that we’ve been able to build a ton of sweat equity into.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 01/03/2018 at 11:29

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W hen I was preparing to put my mom’s house on the market, I was regaled with stories of people offering $10-20k below asking price then having the balls to ask the seller to pay all of the closing costs too. Since th ere’s a military base in the area, t hey ar e typically military folks who don’t have any cash, but qualify for 100% financing. I’m all for people getting into houses, but let’s be real about this. I don’t want to take $20k out of my pocket to make sure they get a house! I have two kids of my own that plan to go to college!

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 01/03/2018 at 11:40

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Recommendation, I’m in my second home now, so I’ve bought twice and sold once.

If anything don’t borrow from your 401k. It’s probably worse than the interest change of adding that little bit into your mortgage. And by that I mean just putting a little less down to make sure they are covered. 401k loans can be terrible.

Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle > shop-teacher 01/03/2018 at 11:43

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100? Crap. My wife would probably go crazy(she has said “we should get it” about every apartment we have ever looked at).

Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle > Textured Soy Protein 01/03/2018 at 11:45

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I do get the impression that maybe my realtor wants to just get us in a house in the “off season” but I don’t know. Things are still selling pretty quickly even here in MN in January. But I’m living at a family members house for cost of utilities and they aren’t there so it’s not like I’m ina rush

Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner 01/03/2018 at 11:47

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Thanks for the tip.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 01/03/2018 at 11:50

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I mean, check the rates on that 401k, because they are all different, but just wanted you to be aware. Maybe it makes sense to take a short term hit to not have a 30 year mortgage impacted by more principal/interest.

Textured Soy Protein > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 01/03/2018 at 11:58

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My parents bought a new vacation house over the summer, which surprised me a little bit. They’ve had the same house in the DC suburbs since 1984 and bought a 2-bedroom house on a couple waterfront acres on the eastern shore of Maryland back in 2007 or 08 or something. They put a good amount of money into renovating it, building a dock, etc. They had been talking about eventually wanting to retire out at the shore, and buying a bigger house to do it.

This past spring, my dad told me they had started going to open houses, and next thing you know he was telling me they put in a lowball offer on a house they weren’t expecting to get accepted, and then a few days later, “whoops they accepted the lowball so we’re buying the house!”

But then they had to scramble and sell the old vacation house, and there were a few months between when they moved over to the new one (they’re like half a mile from each other) and sold the old one, for less than they wanted to get, and after investing in a few different things that needed fixing up to get it sold.

We visited them at said new vacation house, before the old one had sold, my dad was antsy as all hell about having the two vacation house mortgages at the same time (the DC house is paid for) even though they’re rich and the money wasn’t really an issue. It was just this psychological burden for him he couldn’t shake.

Turned out, the whole house buying adventure started because when he was looking at houses on Zillow, he clicked on a “contact an agent” link that he thought was the listing agent for a particular house, but actually Zillow puts a bunch of other agent links on the listing pages, and you have to squint to see if it’s the listing agent or some other agent who just wants to sell you a house.

So this other agent started taking my parents to showings, getting them excited about houses, and before the “accidental” lowball offer on the house they ended up buying, there was another house where this agent pushed them into making an offer and afterward my dad had an anxiety attack and had to rescind it because he really wasn’t ready to make an offer.

My parents are far from easy marks for sales people but this realtor sold the shit out of them.

It all worked out, they like their new bigass vacation house, but I know the way it all went down it stressed the hell out of my dad.

So basically, fuck realtors.

shop-teacher > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 01/03/2018 at 12:09

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My wife is much pickier than that. We bought in 2010. Post bubble pop, but sellers had not yet come to terms with just how little their shitty houses were really worth. It really wasn’t hard to pass on almost all of them, years of horrible Trading Spaces-inspired “upgrades” coupled with lack of maintenance had left nearly all the houses we looked at an utter shit-show.

We looked at the house we ended up buying months earlier, when it was listed for $40k more. At that price, we didn’t even look at the whole inside before leaving. We made offers on two other places. Lost a bidding war on one to a flipper who went bankrupt. 7-1/2 years later, and that place is still empty, with its front staircase ripped off. We walked away from another with a seller who was holding out for too much money.

When the price on this place dropped $40 k, making it a short sale, we took a better look at it and made an offer. Initially we lost it to another buyer, but they couldn’t get financed, so we got it. We barely closed in time to take advantage of the first time home buyer tax credit. If we hadn’t got this place, we were going to stay in our rental house for another year. We were so freaking done with home shopping.

thejustache > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 01/03/2018 at 12:11

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I know the feels as I’m in the process of buying my first house now. That said we actually did find a house we liked despite the market being really small right now in the winter too. The only downside for me: no garage, but it does have a 16x20 concrete pad where there once had been a garage... long term plan would be to put a building back there. Everything else was exactly what we wanted so I figured it was worth going for rather than waiting for more options and hoping we found another house we liked as much as this one.

Waiting is still a thing even being under contract though - I’ve now got all my info to the lender and almost all the inspections done, so it’s just a lot of waiting now until we get our committal letter and can actually close! Good luck on the hunt

JustAnotherG6 > haveacarortwoorthree2 01/03/2018 at 12:12

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It does and I’m attempting to make use of the rafter space in the garage as well.

adamftw > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 01/03/2018 at 12:42

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The whole process sucks. I’m happy that its over with. In a few years I plan on putting an expansion and second garage in my house rather than buying another, just because the process sucks that much. It REALLY sucks in NY, too. Good luck on your search! Be patient when you need to be, but move quick when you need to be quick.

Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle > thejustache 01/03/2018 at 12:52

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Congrats! I don’t mind waiting to get in the house. I think the anticipation of finding the right place is what is killing me.

thejustache > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 01/03/2018 at 12:57

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Thanks! I’m sure something will open up. I feel like we were just extra fortunate this time around, it was only the second house we looked at! I think our Realtor must love us now...

Decay buys too many beaters > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 01/03/2018 at 13:19

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You’re lucky you weren’t in the Oregon buying market, I bought in the Portland area in 2015 and it was one of the most miserable experiences of my life. I saw 6 or so houses a week for 5 months, made offers on somewhere between 10 and 20 at or slightly above asking price and lost out to cash buyers from China or California in each case (all offering 10% or more OVER ask) The house I did end up buying was on the market for 12 hours before I put in my offer, and I was the third offer in at that point....