House before Ring?

nebbiolo · January 2010

I'm not sure if this is the best board to post this question in, but wondering if anyone else out there is postponing the ring and wedding to purchase a home first? Given the state of our economy and the real estate market, we are thinking it is wise to buy now if we can, and then start saving $$ for the ring and wedding.

This is because we have to pay for our wedding ourselves.

This means we will basically have an unfurnished house for many months/year(s) while we save for the wedding.

Ring, wedding, house - who can afford to do it all??

AmoroAgain · January 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_just-engaged-proposals_house-before-ring?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:683Discussion:dcb609fe-549b-4f83-bacd-61d9c12725a0Post:dbe1f53c-a8c9-4241-b0f6-1b185a166efa">House before Ring?</a>:
[QUOTE]I'm not sure if this is the best board to post this question in, but wondering if anyone else out there is postponing the ring and wedding to purchase a home first? Given the state of our economy and the real estate market, we are thinking it is wise to buy now if we can, and then start saving $$ for the ring and wedding. This is because we have to pay for our wedding ourselves. This means we will basically have an unfurnished house for many months/year(s) while we save for the wedding. Ring, wedding, house - who can afford to do it all??
Posted by nebbiolo[/QUOTE]

Most people pay for the wedding on their own.

Buy a house, and even furnish it, before you pay for a big, glammed out wedding. Wedding= one day. Furnished house= several years of enjoyment. I had an engagement ring, but it wasn't something that either of us really believe I'll wear forever, and in fact, I don't wear it at all anymore. I just got a nice wedding band and wear that.

SarahSmile23 · January 2010

I'm torn on this one. While I do believe that a house is a much more solid investment than a wedding, I think that being a home owner is not something to jump into and not something I would do with a boyfriend. What if you skipped out on the big fancy wedding, went to the courthouse, and then bought a house? And the e-ring is nice, but you can start off with a fake one and buy a real one in a few years. I know I'd rather have a house than my ring!

krmabojo · January 2010

My FI and I got a house first.

I was glad we did because we got the house stuff out of the way before the wedding stuff.

alikat1306 · January 2010

yeah with the economy the way it is now it'd be worth it to get a house now that way you can work on fixing it up, furnishing it etc what ever you have to do to it if you can! Thats what we did...then he surprised me and gave me the ring last week(we've been living in the house now for 5 months now)
Best of luck with your decision!

KMF317 · January 2010

We did everything 'backwards' as far as customs are concerned.... lived separately in our own places then bought a house together - we didn't even live together before we moved into our house. We're not engaged yet but have seriously discussed it and will be getting married in the near future. Money is not the issue for us moving in together (I'm not saying we're rich, I'm just pointing out that the reasons behind our decisions were not based on financials) - it was so that we could start building a life together and I have to admit it's working out beautifully. So from my perspective, if you know that this man is definitely The One, buy the house. Living together before marriage has never been more common than it is now and there's plenty of options to protect both parties should something happen (and don't be naive about this - make sure you take the romance out of it and treat it like a business deal when you sign on the dotted line). Build your home together, then get married and have a big party in your new back yard

brackenma · January 2010

My boyfriend and I bought our house in October of 2009. Since we were first time home buyers, we qualified for the $8,000 tax credit. He's using the money we're getting from the tax credit to buy my ring, so I know it's coming soon. It isn't the typical engagement-wedding-buy a home deal, but it works well for us!

farmersonly10 · January 2010

My boyfriend, now fiance and I started looking at houses before we got engaged. We felt the same way about the economy and everything. In fact we actually signed papers on a home before getting engaged because an opportunity to good to pass up came along. However, at the time we had a really serious dicussion and I told him that even though I loved him and knew we were going to get married someday that I still would feel more comfortable having a ring on my a finger before we went and got a mortgage together. It wasn't an ultimatum, in my eyes and his it was security because you just never know. Granted we couldn't move in for a year while the other couple builds, but it is still nice. Less than a month later we got engaged and are getting married in November.

nebbiolo · January 2010

Thanks for the responses ladies! And congrats to all of you where it worked out well.

I'm not concerned about getting a ring on my finger for security reasons, but at the same time it would be wonderful to get engaged sooner rather than later. If we find our dream home at a great price (and with these interest rates being so low), we won't pass it up. We will definitely have a lawyer draft up an agreement regarding our property ownership just in case (laws just don't protect you like they do if you are married and own property).

TurtlesAllTheWayDown · January 2010

If ALL your savings are needed for a down payment, I would be concerned. What about closing costs? Do you need PMI? What about other costs, like a housing inspection? What if the dishwasher breaks 3 months after you move in? You've already said you can't really afford to furnish it. A house isn't a right - not everyone NEEDS to be a homeowner.

nebbiolo · January 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_just-engaged-proposals_house-before-ring?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:683Discussion:dcb609fe-549b-4f83-bacd-61d9c12725a0Post:507ac41c-7b78-41ac-a626-17ab8ed3c569">Re: House before Ring?</a>:
[QUOTE]If ALL your savings are needed for a down payment, I would be concerned. What about closing costs? Do you need PMI? What about other costs, like a housing inspection? What if the dishwasher breaks 3 months after you move in? You've already said you can't really afford to furnish it. A house isn't a right - not everyone NEEDS to be a homeowner.
Posted by msmerymac[/QUOTE]

Not even close to all our savings are going towards a home. I should have clarified - we have a separate fund for house/marriage that is in ADDITION to our regular savings. We started this 6 months ago and it's purely for house/marriage. It would be wiped out with down payment and closing costs, thus we'd be starting from scratch for savings for the wedding.

And we have some furniture, but we wouldn't be able to focus on decorating and furnishing to our tastes and the house as much because will have to save for the wedding. The furniture we currently have would be phased out for better furniture that fits/goes with the house etc. Plus, some bedrooms would prob go empty for a while, but we don't need them immediately anyway.

I agree that home ownership isn't a right, and I don't believe I ever suggested that it was!

Kalliana · January 2010

I do own and apartment of my own that is my main income source and we decided that we don't care about buying another home together. We just moved in a new apt that we rent together and we are pretty happy like that.
Right now our No1 priority is savings. We are not looking into being in debt, and that is a wise decision imho in this time of economic crisis.

TurtlesAllTheWayDown · January 2010

Sorry if I offended you Nebbiolo. Okay, then, I say... it really doesn't matter. ;-) I might do like PP suggested and have a small intimate wedding (like a JOP followed by dinner) and buy the house soon.

megk8oz · January 2010

DH and I bought the house before we got engaged (Little did I know, we bought the house only about an hour before we got engaged, but I'll get to that later).

We knew we wanted to get engaged and get married, we were absolutely certain of it. But we were also living with our parents (We were about 22 when this started). Pretty much the day we realized that someday we were going to want to get married and live together and all that stuff, we opened a savings account together, and every week, no excuses we had a set amount of money that we put into it. We knew that nobody was in a position to help us, so a house and a wedding were on our dime. We also decided against getting engaged because we really just didn't want to be "that couple" that got engaged and 8 years later still wasn't married. Some people can do it, that's just not us. So we pretty much agreed that we would get engaged when we knew getting married was "do-able" in the near future.

Anyway, after saving up for about year, we had enough money for a miniscule down payment or a really small wedding. We had to make a choice. Essentially, we went with getting the house, because it came down to "Well, say we have this wedding we can afford-where do we sleep the next night?". So the house was obviously the better choice in our situation. I knew that I was "giving up the ring" for a year or so at least, but I felt way better knowing that I wasn't going to get married and then live in my mom's basement, ya know? Plus, I knew that the engagement was inevitable, so waiting it out really didn't bother me that much. And the entire time we were saving up, we considered ourselves an "engaged couple ... that just so happened to be missing a ring".

DH wound up surprising me by proposing with a ring at the closing. Obviously, I said yes. We wound up having an 18-month engagement, but with a lot of scrimping and saving, we were able to get our place, put furniture in it and have the wedding of our dreams.

I believe in getting a place first, for my exact reason above "Once you get married-where do you sleep the next night?" ... "Mom's basement" is just not an answer that sits right with me.

chaparrita81 · January 2010

I TOTALLY understand how you feel. My fiance and I have been engaged for 1 YEAR and still have NO RING!... granted we make our money in PESOS and not dollars, so the average ring costs us 10X as much, (ie. a 2,600$ ring costs us $30,000 pesos!)

We're saving to finish paying for our recently purchased restaurant, Im going to Claires to purchase a $15.00 cubic zarconia engagement ring to tide me over, and turn away those people that say "oh you have no ring, how sad."

:-)

deepcovejackie · February 2010

OMG you guys are smart. I would say house, house, house! It's a great time to buy. Congrats on your smarts!

SarahPLiz · February 2010

We did this too. I sold my old house and we bought one together. I wasn't expecting a proposal for at least another year, but he saved up enough in 5 months and now we are engaged. In my mind, a mortgage contract is much more legally binding than a marriage certificate these days.

snoangel79 · February 2010

As long as your "engaged" before you do this. I say this because I own a house with my ex-boyfriend, whom I was with for 11 years. Also say this because I now live in a new house that I own myself and live with my fiance and the younger girl down the street had her fiance basically walk at the signing and now she has the house up for sale. Even though you don't want to think this would ever happen to you, this happens. It happened to me with a guy I was with forever, he cheated, I left. We are cordial now but my name is still on that house!!! Trying to get him to refinance. This is from a guy that was with me during a horrible time in my life (cancer treatments at 23) never thought he'd do that but he did!! Just be careful. I don't want to be Debbie Downer but definately talk everything out like this before.

suz62984 · February 2010

House all the way. I'm in real estate. The mortgage rates are about to go back up. As of now you buy a $145K house and you will end up paying approximately $290K after 30 yrs. This is with interest rates as is. Imagine if they go up...and they will shortly. Also, the tax credit ends this year. Contract before April 30th and Closing before June 30 and you're good to go!

A house appreciates and a wedding/ring doesn't. A house is an investment in your future. As long as you two are completely committed to each other I say go for it!

LindsayHallerToBe · February 2010

Call me super traditional, but I would never buy a house with someone before getting a ring. If finances are a concern, maybe the timing just isn't right yet. I would save up some money to build a nest egg in the future. A girlfriend of mine has been with her boyfriend for 3 years, they know they want to get married, and both just graduated law school. They have a great future ahead of them and reeeeally want to get engaged/married, but to do that right now they would be really setting themselves back financially. An aunt of mine got married young, before she and my uncle had really built up any funds, and they've been behind the eight ball ever since when it comes to finances.

Also, I think living together in your own cozy home should be one of the joys of marriage. Plus, there have so many times when friends of mine have been purchasing shower gifts for brides already living in a home with their fiance that I've heard, "How could she possibly need this stuff. They've already got a house and obviously all the things that go in it." So people think the brides are greedy.

All in all, you have to make a decision that you're comfortable with and that suits YOUR lifestyle. Everyone is going to have a different opinion on this matter. My fiance and I could've purchased a home last year when the credit first came out, but living together and owning a home is so precious to us as a joy of marriage that we decided to househunt post-honeymoon.

Good luck!!!!

LindsayHallerToBe · February 2010

Call me super traditional, but I would never buy a house with someone before getting a ring. If finances are a concern, maybe the timing just isn't right yet. I would save up some money to build a nest egg in the future. A girlfriend of mine has been with her boyfriend for 3 years, they know they want to get married, and both just graduated law school. They have a great future ahead of them and reeeeally want to get engaged/married, but to do that right now they would be really setting themselves back financially. An aunt of mine got married young, before she and my uncle had really built up any funds, and they've been behind the eight ball ever since when it comes to finances.

Also, I think living together in your own cozy home should be one of the joys of marriage. Plus, there have so many times when friends of mine have been purchasing shower gifts for brides already living in a home with their fiance that I've heard, "How could she possibly need this stuff. They've already got a house and obviously all the things that go in it." So people think the brides are greedy.

All in all, you have to make a decision that you're comfortable with and that suits YOUR lifestyle. Everyone is going to have a different opinion on this matter. My fiance and I could've purchased a home last year when the credit first came out, but living together and owning a home is so precious to us as a joy of marriage that we decided to househunt post-honeymoon.

Good luck!!!!

millejj1 · February 2010

House all the way! A house is somewhere to live and make a home! So many women get nice rings and then get "fakes" to wear around so their originals don't get stolen or damaged.

Get a small (even costume jewelry) ring so that the world knows and can share in your joy but put the money towards the house!

Vintagelove4 · November 2012

It's truly up to you two. Given the econ though, I'd say get the house first since who knows when prices will be this low again.

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