The 'hunt' is on

My wife and I were just preapproved for a mortgage, so we're now searching for our first house.

Looking mostly in the Dover area, which means in our price range we're really looking in Somersworth and Rochester.

Anyone have any advice as we embark on the great endavour?

-Stephen

Stephen said:

Anyone have any advice as we embark on the great endavour?

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First of all, congratulations! When you find a home that interests you, do a cost analysis. It's pretty simple really. Ask your agent to provide a list of recently sold similar homes in the area. This data should include square footage of the home and selling price. From your data set, determine the average cost per square foot. Multiply this value by the square footage of the home you're interested in and that should give you a solid value for the home. Obviously you can adjust a bit for the condition of the home and if it has additional features your comparables don't have, but I wouldn't offer much higher than what your cost analysis indicates. Having this data should provide some firepower for qualifying your offer. Ideally, your comparables should be in the same town (better yet the same, or nearby neighborhood), should be of similar size (square footage) and should contain similar features (number of bedrooms, bathrooms, whether there is a garage, etc...).

Obviously, the above can only occur after you're found a home. Get yourself a good buyer's agent. Ours was very good and Internet-saavy. She would Email MLS data on newly listed homes as soon as they went up. This gave us the opportunity to act quickly which is key. Here's some info for when viewing/inspecting a home:

http://www.freddiemac.com/homebuyers/house/inspection.html

I worked with my brother-in-law on a consumer Web site a few years ago. It hasn't been updated in a number of months, but there is still some good info here:

http://www.newbuyer.com/homes/

It's basically a directory of links that have been reviewed and considered high quality. Hope this helps!

Congrats and good luck!

Have you looked at any of the Robert Irwin books? We picked up one on buying a new house when we made our purchase 9 years ago, and it had some pretty good advice in it.

Other than that, I'd just echo Greg's advice about getting a good buyer's agent, and I'd also suggest that you hire a real estate attorney to at least look over the Purchase and Sale agreement. Sometimes (as in our case) even the bank's attorney may do this as a courtesy.

We have an agent who's been a friend of ours for years. He works for Remax, and has a strong online presence. We're searching directly in MLS and it checks our default search every 10 minutes. Anytime there is a change (new property, change in price, etc) we get an e-mail alert.

-Stephen

Other than the good advice listed above regarding real estate VALUE guidance, besides real estate taxes, neighborhoods, traffic patterns, schools, etc…create a PREFERENCE CHECK LIST of CREATURE COMFORTS and SLEEP on every REAL Candidate before deciding YES of NO.

Good Luck!

Stephen said:

My wife and I were just preapproved for a mortgage, so we're now searching for our first house.

Looking mostly in the Dover area, which means in our price range we're really looking in Somersworth and Rochester.

Anyone have any advice as we embark on the great endavour?

-Stephen

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Congrats

My Girlfriend lives in Dover. Although a renter, she lives on Lexington street.

Best of luck!

Congrats Stephen! in recent years real estate has been a wise investment for lots of folks, including myself. If your in a competetive market be prepared to pay asking price and possibly more. My brother-in-law just bought a place in Hudson, NH and paid nearly the current asking price. This after losing two bids on other houses which ended up selling for more than the list price.

If you can stand the joys of home renovation there are some deals to be had in the fixer-upper category. Some just need minor work, and some are money pits. If you go this route, get a GOOD home inspector and have him really go through the place. This is even a good idea if the house is only 5 years old.

Finally, get EVERYTHING in writing. If the appliance are staying, make sure the purchase and sales (P & S) agreement says so. I second the suggestion of having a real estate attorney review your P & S. Our first house was "for sale by owner" and the guy just wanted to write up a standard P&S form. He was selling the place for his step-mom who was in a nursing home and wanted to save money. I balked and paid an attorney $200 to write one up. In the end it saved my arse because the old woman died three days before closing! Worse yet, a different person had power-of-attorney over the woman's estate. She tried to ask for more money for the place, but luckily I had a clause in the P&S that the sale agreement was binding to all of her heirs, so they had to honor it. After many headaches and months of waiting the house finally cleared the probate cout and we signed papers. Just goes to show ANYTHING can happen so do your homework and be prepared.

Good luck! Smitty

Just to let you all know, our hunt has changed a little, and we're now looking for a multi-unti.

Stephen said:

Just to let you all know, our hunt has changed a little, and we're now looking for a multi-unti.

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Gonna be a slum-lord, eh? :wink:
Seriously though, it's not a bad way to get all of your mortgage paid by someone else.
Smitty

Lot's of good advice here Stephen. Congrats on getting approved! Good luck, and I hope you enjoy the house hunt.

I'll add that its useful to track the first bunch of houses you look at. If you have time, it can be informative to look at a house, note the asking price and see what happens to it.

I didn't buy in a hot market. In my case, it paid not to fall in love with one house and to be willing to bid well below asking. My wife and I ended up liking two houses that were a bit above our price range and made bids about 20% under asking. The first one flat out refused the second made a decent counter offer and we ended up reaching an agreement after a few offers back and forth.

And, when it comes time to buying insurance - go for the full replacement value clause. It's worth it. If you want, you can pay for it by increasing the deductable. If you ever really need the insurance, the full replacement cost clause can make a huge difference - 500 dollars or a 1,000 dollars difference in the deductable won't mean much.

UK: I was speaking of when we originally bought. Re-construction is starting at the same location... the house needs a new roof, and lots of other work. Work started in earnest last Monday.

Thank goodness for the full repair/replacement value clause - for the house, it means we get 47,000 more than the stated policy limit. For our belongings it means we can get full replacement value for the items, not just the depreciated value, so long as we actually replace them (there are some exemptions to this clause, for example - collectables and antiques, and the insurance company fought to exclude books - we didn't have any antiques, and few collectables, but lots of books.

Update. We placed an offer on a house.

you can visit http://www.dunhom.com/house

The first one on the list is the one we've bid on.

-Stephen

Cool - congrats! Great-looking porch there.

What would be the plan - kick the tenant-at-will, live in the small unit until the other's lease expires, then move into the larger?

Know the law well before dealing with tenants! In MA it's miserable, but NH will be different.

Actually, you might not want to reply publically to my question. It may have legal repercussions.

best of luck!

Stephen said:

Just to let you all know, our hunt has changed a little, and we're now looking for a multi-unti.

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Best wishes...it's a tough business. Brian and I did that with our first home. It's great as long as you get paid; it sucks if you don't since all the laws are in the tenants' favor. Make sure you read up all the local and federal Tenant-Landlord laws. They will become your best friends. If the current tenant(s) doesn't have a rental agreements/leases, hire a good real estate attorney to write one for you. If you're interested, I still have copies of the one we used that our attorney approved/revised for us. It's geared toward Connecticut laws, but you could always have a NH lawyer go over and it and adjust as necessary. It's important to get EVERYTHING in writing as you'd be amazed what you forget and how it can be used against you later on in this litigous society. If the tenant(s) already has a rental agreement, you can always offer (but not force) them to sign a new one with you. If they don't want to sign your agreement/lease, you have to honor whatever agreement is already in effect until it expires.

Good luck! If you have any landlording questions, don't hesitate to ask... I'll help in any way that I can.

Oh yes, and make sure you hire a really good home inspector before closing on the property. Make sure the closing is contingent upon a satisfactory report from the home inspector. Don't want to get stuck with a "Money Pit" after all... Good luck!