How to buy a house in the USA? (1 Viewer)

[Tim Abbott]

Assuming you have the income to qualify, a 662 should be fine. The bankruptcy is almost certainly the thing that is driving (or keeping) your score down. It takes a long time to for the negative effects to be removed from your credit report.

Generally, if your credit has been good since the bankruptcy, you will qualify for a mortgage 24 months after it has been discharged.

 

[Peter Burtch]

Congrats! Especially on the home theater part . Where I live north of Chicago you can barely touch a decent condo for that price. And you won't find a house anywhere remotely close with the specs you list. Nice view too, I bet .
cheers,
Pedro

My wife and I are looking at buying our first house here in the Pacific Northwest, which is in the neighborhood of $170,000. This price includes all the available "upgrades" we wanted, including the lot premium, etc.
This is a 2289 sq. ft home, featuring: 3 BR, 2.5 BA, 2 Car garage, with BONUS ROOM (My future dedicated media/HT room!!!). Decent sized lot, with a good view of Mt. Rainier from the 2nd floor. Alot of home (2289 sq ft) for the money, in this area anyway.

 

[Ron-P]

Buy a beat-up fixer-upper in a good to great location. Don't buy a big new house in a poor to bad location. You can always upgrade the house, but not the lot.
I could have bought a brand new 2-story house in the mid 200's, inland. Instead, I bought a 32 year old 3-bedroom fixer-upper 2.4 miles from the beach instead. I dropped bout 18k into fixing it up. My house has nearly doubled in value while inland, they have maybe gone up 40-50k. A house 2 doors down in not as good of shape as mine sold for 398k 3 months ago.
Peace Out~

 

[CharlesD]

Lots of good advice here. I am in a similar position, considering/just starting the process (also a British ex-pat developer! (not games) )
Do as much research as possible, ask lots of questions. My bank told me citizenship does make a difference, but if you have been here 2-3 years on a green card you should be OK. My bank also told me anything over 620 should be no prob for the loan.
I have a fair amount of cash stashed away so I am going for 20% down even though I am a first time owner. The mortgage insurance is just as much as a waste as rent is as far as return on investment goes. I'll let the 20% down determine how much house I buy, and if I don't like the choices I'll just save up some more & try again later (although I must say having a lot savings is a nice feeling with the current economy/job market!)
If you can't swing the 20% there is a "80-10-10" loan.. you put 1-% down, use that equity to get a loan for that amount to bring the down-payment up to 20% and then get a mortgage for the the other 80. This might be worth investigating.
A townhouse is a good option if you're worried about maintenance (this is what i'm looking at first.)
Good luck. I am convinced its the best thing to do compared to renting! I am very much looking forward to getting my own place, even if it is not for another year or so.

 

[Michael D. Bunting]

Here is an update:
We are pre-approved from our bank (USAA) for a mortgage loan up to $173,400.00 !
That is all we asked for....and in a little over 3 hours we found out it that it would be no problem. We don't have a rate as of yet....that will be decided once we find the house and get further into the purchasing process. We are doing a 30 year VA Loan (No down payment!).
As for the house I talked about earlier....we still like it. But I may have found another one I like better or the same for about $10k less now, and it still has nearly everything I mentioned before (only big differences are: 1800+ sq ft vs 2289 sq ft and no real good view of Mt. Rainier from this site). It even has a perfect room on the lower floor (the family room) for my HT Room!
I will be heading back later today to check out the house a little more with my wife and our realtor.
Here is a shot of the home we will be checking out:

 

[BrianB]

Well, as the originator of this thread, this is a pretty timely revival of it.
We decided to punt for six months back in March, did a bunch more reading, saving etc. So we're now getting back into the game. After getting a reccomendation from a friend who just bought a house in the same area, we've hooked up with a real estate agent & been preapproved for a mortgage. Really impressed with the mortgage company so far - very straightforward to deal with, very factual as well as giving some good advice. Gave us a range of potential mortgages with full breakdown of upfront costs & likely monthly bills. Our friend dealt with the same person throughout his mortgage with zero issues.
In fact, we're off to view houses with the agent for the first time this weekend. Going to be exciting - first time ever we'll have tramped through someone else's house. We've looked on the outside plenty though
The good thing is we're in no real hurry - our current lease ends at the beginning of February.

 

[MarcVH]

Be aware that many people have a (possibly irrational) hatred of split-entry houses; this doesn't mean you shouldn't buy one, but you'll probably sell it for less than you would for a 2-story and therefore should buy it for less as well.

Townhouses make sense for some people and some areas, but I'd be very cautious about recommending one for a home theater enthusiast. Shared walls and big subwoofers don't go together well.

We were looking at houses a year or so ago, but the economic uncertainty has us in the "pent-up demand" category. I know one guy who literally got laid off on signing day.

 

[SteveA]

I bought a house last winter, and my agent also said to avoid split-level houses, because they are so hard to sell these days. They were all the rage about 20 years ago, though.

I say, buy what you dig! That is a very nice looking house. Good luck!

 

[BrianB]

Split-entry? Got a pic somewhere to show what you mean?

 

[MarcVH]

Scroll up to Michael's reply. The term refers to the fact that the front door opens up to a landing between two levels; typically the upstairs consists of kitchen, dining, living, and bedrooms while downstairs is the family room, utility room, maybe a garage, etc. That's distinct from a "2-story" which usually means the front door enters directly to a main level which has the kitchen, living, dining, family, etc. and the upstairs consists of just bedrooms (and bathrooms and maybe laundry.)

 

[Ron-P]

Edit: Marc beat me by 2 minutes.
Peace Out~

 

[BrianB]

The term refers to the fact that the front door opens up to a landing between two levels;

That's what I needed to know - it wasn't completely clear from the pic. Thanks.

 

[Travis Hedger]

I got my home 2 years ago this December.

From application to move in in 16 days!

The tax benefits rule.

I got laid off 6 months after getting the house and took a job that was substantially less in pay. The tax preparer thought we would not have had enough taxes taken out, until I gave her my mortage interest figures. This balanced everything out and ended up getting a $1400 tax refund. Without the house I would have gotten near nothing or had to pay in.

 

[Michael D. Bunting]

I must say that you guys have got me a little scared about buying a split-entry house :frowning:
It seems like these type of houses are going to be the only floorplan (that we can afford) that will allow for any kind of dedicated media room. Most of the homes around here in western Washington State do not have basements that could work as well.
We like the house (pictured above) but the lot's left in this certain subdivision that are still available are a little less deireable than what we would like. There may be one left that would be okay - just not exactly what we had in mind.
It seems like for every house that we find that we do like - there are 1 or 2 things that we want (media room or good lot) that we have seen on another house that isn't even available or possible on the current one we are looking at.
We found a perfect two-story house (just built) with alot of upgrades included in a great subdivision with a good yard -- my wife absolutely loves it (I can tell) - of course, the only thing missing is a damn bonus room for my media room :frowning:
Here is a shot of the layout:

There are two options with this house for having a media/ht room:
Option #1: BEDROOM #3 - which is a 11X12 room...would this be too small for a projector and screen? It wouldn't allow for alot of seating (unfortunately) but it may work?
Option #2: Knock out the wall between bedroom #2 and #4 and create a 11X23 room. This would still make it a 3BR home - should we ever decide or have to sel it down the road. I have heard that you want to have at least 3 BR's if you want to sell a house. So, knocking out the wall takes this from a 4 BR to a 3 BR home, so I'd think we would e okay there.
Thanks for any help or suggestions...time to go look at more houses....

 

[Joel Mack]

I had a split-level home. I sold it 4 months ago. It was on the market for a week, and I got my asking price. I also made a 30% profit after owning it for 7 years. Take what you will from that...

 

[MarcVH]

Sorry, it's not my intent to scare you away from a split-level. If you like one, and the idea of a family room which is downstairs and separated from everything else appeals to you, that's fine. It may even be a bargain that you can buy for less money than other floor plans -- just be aware that when you buy a bargain, you can expect to sell a bargain as well.
Myself, I keep the home theater steup in the living room. I don't like the idea of a media room which is far away from the kitchen and other living spaces. Some people might complain that having dual SVS cylinders in the living room kind of dominates the room, but I don't see that as a bad thing...
Oh, and the one other thing is to always beware of fireplaces! Some architects like to take a nice room which could make a good home theater, but then in the one place where the screen is supposed to go they'll go and stick in a fireplace! How lame!

 

[BrianB]

Another revival.
We close on our house in exactly two weeks

 

[Kelley_B]

Pics BrianB!!!