1st time home buyer advice (2025)

[Yoricks Wisdom]

Some really good advice itt.

Sounds like you're moving from the barrio to the hinterlands. Not starting a neo nazi group I hope.
(Just finished reading The Order, takes place in various rural locales.)

Make friends with local neighbors if you're able to be sociable, they can be a real help at times.

I'm on my fourth home, each one having gotten better (if not larger) over the years. Property values fluctuate for
sure and I've been fortunate to see my current residence appreciate from $248k years ago to over $1.4 million now.

Good luck.

 

[boingyman]

The answer to all is yes. . Everything's good with financials and work and the rest. Always buy furniture used from online estate sales when I need it. Would furnish the house this way with everything but the mattress. Better quality stuff and cheaper / dirt cheap depending on location.

Then make sure you do all the leg work and don't go too crazy that could make you house poor. Look to see if their are any incentives for first time homebuyers. Shop around for loans, title, inspection. Educate yourself on the home buying and loan process. Learn how to read loan estimates line by line. Look up property taxes, get quotes on homeowners insurance, cost of utilities. Find a good agent you can trust, but don't solely rely on that person. Basically become the expert so you can be empowered before purchasing your home.

 

[Natural Order]

Living under a roof is for pussies!

 

[TheTickG]

Landed a really good job last year and looking at buying a house. Not married, no kids, so no issues there. GF but she won't ever be living with me, and neither will any other because I love living alone and don't want kids. Did a search function noob query, but last thread was 2019. Solid advice about the home inspection and some other things, but figured I'd post a new thread for any updated advice in our current climate. Seller's market now but what can ya do? Some other details if needed:

- house will most likely be in a rural area. Well water, septic tank, electric ac, and oil, propane, or elec heat.
- Have well over 20% for the money down.
- Current situation is better than most. Rent's $1100 a mo for a single home (cheap considering a 1br apt around here goes for over that) but live in a white trash / latino trash area that's going downhill. These retards with their vehicles, music, and fireworks are driving me crazy. I thought it was just me becoming an old cunt early in life, but a lot of ppl I know have moved away from here for this same reason. Considering the property tax on this house is $5000 a yr, my real cost of rent is dirt cheap, but too many dipshits here that need a lobotomy.
- I'm not too handy with repairs. I can fix simple things (toilet, sink, drywall) but I don't have the knowledge for major issues.

Thank you all in advance, even the shit posters.

I would not buy a house I was going to live in, if it was in a trashy location.

 

[tgv976]

A follow up question.

Is it normal now for banks/lenders to hard write the interest owed into the mortgage or pre-approval to prevent you from reducing the total interest owed for making extra early payments?

I've emailed the person who gave me the pre-approval and asked her if I paid more early would it deduct from the principal and reduce the total interest owed. She keeps dodging the question and only responds with let me know when you have an agreement of sale and we can review all the terms. I told her we are wasting each other's time without this information because I refuse to finance anything unless I can make early payments without penalty. Still awaiting a response in writing.

 

[Oblivian]

A follow up question.

Is it normal now for banks/lenders to hard write the interest owed into the mortgage or pre-approval to prevent you from reducing the total interest owed for making extra early payments?

I've emailed the person who gave me the pre-approval and asked her if I paid more early would it deduct from the principal and reduce the total interest owed. She keeps dodging the question and only responds with let me know when you have an agreement of sale and we can review all the terms. I told her we are wasting each other's time without this information because I refuse to finance anything unless I can make early payments without penalty. Still awaiting a response in writing.

Are you working with a local bank/credit union or an internet lender. As a guy who owns a title company, I can't emphasize enough how you want to work with local lender. I can't tell you how many people come to a closing that absolutely hated the process of working with their lender, but they were too far in to start over.

We close hundreds of residential deals per year, and I can't remember the last time that I saw a prepayment penalty. If you can't get an answer to that simple question from your lender, move on. In almost every closing that I'm in where we hand out the amortization schedule, the lender will mention an extra payment a year on a 30 year will reduce your term to 24 years.

 

[jeff7b9]

Have your agent pull the permit history on the property IMMEDIATELY when you know that is the house. (Or do it yourself it is easy and free or cheap)

Hopefully the town gets it to you prior to the end of inspections.

Also, have your lawyer stretch the attorney review by 5 or so days and stretch the inspection period as this will give you time for that permit history to come thru.

Some towns will give it to you the same day others could take a while. This tells you useful info on the town, does the town do their jobs or is the town government a sham?

Permit history, which as far as I know MOST people don't do and I am guessing many don't even know about is incredible info, I'd argue sometimes as important or more than the inspection.

Ask your inspector questions about the systems.in the house and how to maintain them, signs to look for to catch problems EARLY. Ideally video his answers to be able to refer back to.

 

[tgv976]

Are you working with a local bank/credit union or an internet lender. As a guy who owns a title company, I can't emphasize enough how you want to work with local lender. I can't tell you how many people come to a closing that absolutely hated the process of working with their lender, but they were too far in to start over.

We close hundreds of residential deals per year, and I can't remember the last time that I saw a prepayment penalty. If you can't get an answer to that simple question from your lender, move on. In almost every closing that I'm in where we hand out the amortization schedule, the lender will mention an extra payment a year on a 30 year will reduce your term to 24 years.

Local credit union. It did give me cause for concern that the question keeps going unaddressed in the responses. That exact scenario of being too far into the process and not wanting to start over was something that crossed my mind. Thanks. I'll dig deeper and try to get something in writing from someone who works in the mortgage department there. If unsuccessful, I'll have a backup pre-approval ready as well.

 

[DanSavage]

Have your agent pull the permit history on the property IMMEDIATELY when you know that is the house. (Or do it yourself it is easy and free or cheap)

Hopefully the town gets it to you prior to the end of inspections.

Also, have your lawyer stretch the attorney review by 5 or so days and stretch the inspection period as this will give you time for that permit history to come thru.

Some towns will give it to you the same day others could take a while. This tells you useful info on the town, does the town do their jobs or is the town government a sham?

Permit history, which as far as I know MOST people don't do and I am guessing many don't even know about is incredible info, I'd argue sometimes as important or more than the inspection.

Ask your inspector questions about the systems.in the house and how to maintain them, signs to look for to catch problems EARLY. Ideally video his answers to be able to refer back to.

I agree 100% with this advice.

There are many fly-by-night 'contractors' who do sub-standard work. Even with permits, it can become a nightmare. We hired a contractor to finish our basement and he pulled all the permits, but did sub-standard work that needed to come down and be completely re-done. Needless to say, we fired the contractor and did all the work ourselves to make sure it was done right.

The big thing about permits is that if work that should be permitted is done without a permit and associated inspection and something happens like a fire or flood, the insurance company can and probably will deny the claim.

 

[SalvadorAllende]

Sex dungeon is non negotiable.

 

[jeff7b9]

I agree 100% with this advice.

There are many fly-by-night 'contractors' who do sub-standard work. Even with permits, it can become a nightmare. We hired a contractor to finish our basement and he pulled all the permits, but did sub-standard work that needed to come down and be completely re-done. Needless to say, we fired the contractor and did all the work ourselves to make sure it was done right.

The big thing about permits is that if work that should be permitted is done without a permit and associated inspection and something happens like a fire or flood, the insurance company can and probably will deny the claim.

So I started doing this years ago and happened upon something REALLY interesting in one of the first instances.

I'm an agent. I did the sale of my mother in law's old house and the buy of her and her douchebag asperger 2nd husband's current house.

The house they were buying was advertised as "brand new septic"

Permits told a different story. They did a MINOR repair but all the parts were original, going back I think to the 80s. That's one hell of a stretch to call that new... original tanks, original leech field maybe a PUMP was new or something ridiculous like that.

Agent and seller lied their asses off but I had the receipts.

I think we got a rough 20k credit.

Pull your permits. Make sure that major work was done right and done when they said. Roof, septic, wells, major renos... all that shit has a paper trail.

It's like CarFax for your house. You pull a carfax report for 10k used car, pull the reports for your hundreds of thousands of dollars investment in a property. It is usually FREE to do it.