House buying is SO STRESSFUL! Update!

charlotte989875

Congratulations @SP29! Can't wait to see pictures. 

Keisha84

Congrats @SP29!!!! And thank you for the advice 

short+sassy

Congrats!  That's wonderful and exciting news.

Out of curiosity, why is the closing date so far into the future (March)?

SaintPaulGal

So glad things came to a conclusion that you are happy with!

sparklepants41

Congratulations!!!

SP29

short+sassy said:

Congrats!  That's wonderful and exciting news.

Out of curiosity, why is the closing date so far into the future (March)?

The original owner is buying (possibly building?) a house with his girlfriend (they currently do not live together). Works for us since we are renting. Gives us more time to save up a bit more money and plan for furniture purchases and such. But yes- every other house wanted a close of 30 days or less!

short+sassy

SP29 said:

short+sassy said:

Congrats!  That's wonderful and exciting news.

Out of curiosity, why is the closing date so far into the future (March)?

The original owner is buying (possibly building?) a house with his girlfriend (they currently do not live together). Works for us since we are renting. Gives us more time to save up a bit more money and plan for furniture purchases and such. But yes- every other house wanted a close of 30 days or less!

Win-win!  Usually buyers also want to close and start moving in, within 30ish days.  I suspect he would have had a hard time with most buyers, wanting a closing date in March.  Meant to be .

knottie1e80f29b245e2c99

I agree that buying a new home is really stressful, especially when you choose one and then you have to go for renovation. Going for renovation requires all the research, you need to decide what renovation is needed, and from whom the renovation is to be done. I have a friend who after her marriage purchased a new house which required renovation. She got the necessary changes done by a local contractor, installed the impact resistant windows and doors on which she got the best deals and also did some DIY projects. It was a bit hectic for her, but at the end was really happy with the results.

missJeanLouise

@KnotRiley vendor alert.

OwningAHome1981

SP29 said:

DH and I started house shopping this fall- first time home buyers.

The market in the city we live in is pretty hot and house prices in the area have gone up substantially in the past 1-2 years. We are looking outside the city- we want property- so the houses do tend to sit longer, but the prices are still high.

We've been pre-approved for a good amount, but it's coming down to what do we actually want to spend on X house. DH is pretty flexible on where we live- he's prepared to move 1-2 hours away to find more house on a farm-like property if it's cheaper in the budget. He travels a lot for work anyway, and can work from home if he wanted. Me- I work in a hospital, currently at a regional trauma centre, which is where I want to be right now. I can work in a variety of places with my profession, but I *want* to be in a regional centre and learn all that I can. We also lived in Edmonton for some years, and when we moved back home, we left behind a great group of friends- I don't want to move "away" again and not see our friends that live here. Part of the reason to moving back here (which is our hometown), in addition to DH's job offer, was so when we have children, they can grow up with their grandparents and cousins close by. So I've got pretty strong feelings on how far I'm willing to move. If we consider going 40-60mins east of the city, we can get a lot more property (maybe more house) for the same amount of money, but I really prefer the area south/west of the city- which of course is the more expensive area.

We've seen 10 houses in person so far. We've seen a few nice options, but there's usually something that makes us say "nah!"- either the house is a bit small with not much option to add on to (such as a house not having a basement that could be renovated into additional living space), or the price is over our ideal budget (we are prepared to go over for the right property) and the house hasn't been updated since 1978.

Anyway- so we did find a house we quite like. It's not perfect- outdated, needs new windows throughout, would be nice if it were a bit bigger, but I can see us living there and it has potential. Structurally it looks good, there is a large basement that could be renovated, or we could consider an addition. 3 bedrooms, 2 baths. 2 car attached garage with a separate large pole shed on 2.5 acres and hardly any neighbours around, except for the house across the road. Good location- close to the highway, and close to my horse(!). But we think it's overpriced. We put in an offer today, for ~55K less than asking (and they've done a price drop already), which of course they didn't take. They countered with a number that is about $15-25K more than we'd like to pay, so we let the offer drop and we'll consider a new offer if it's still for sale in a week or so- they're ideal closing date is less than a month away, so we may have some leverage there.

But gah! I'm pulling myself in two directions. Part of me is very matter of fact, I don't want to pay more than $X for the house. Essentially to make the house everything we'd want it to be, we would need to renovate the entire house (update kitchen, bathrooms, flooring and finish the basement with home office, guest bedroom, bathroom)- which is fine, and that would be done over a period of time, but we also don't want to max out the budget to do so. We also aren't in a rush to buy, so I always wonder "well what if the perfect house comes up next month...". But then the other side says, but it's a good location! Nice property! Close to your horse! In the budget! And what if someone else buys it and you never find anything else you like quite as much!

So for now we go back to the drawing board and we wait...

I'm probably going to get scolded for resurrecting an old thread (apparently that's a crime here, who knew... your post is from October)... that said, we looked @ a house as well. Everything was updated and beautiful but the boiler and hot water heater and a few other 'big things' were shot and would have needed to be replaced within a year. We tried to get the seller to come down on price and essentially give us the $$ to pay to have it fixed OR have it fixed for us before we bought it. She wouldn't budge so we walked away from it and got a fixer-upper for $30k less. While renovating is a PITA (we're still renovating a year later) and certainly not cheap, it give you flexibility to make the house the way you want it. Yes the other house was updated and beautiful but some of it was not to our taste. I don't regret walking away from that house at all. I love our house.

Most important thing to know is you can't change the neighborhood but you can change the house. So make sure you like the neighborhood!

Good luck. I think you have a bit of time to think about it b/c I think if that house is really overpriced it will be sitting on the market for a while and will eventually have to lower their price to sell... you might get it after all. Takes a little patience and waiting.

SP29

I do appreciate your advice/experience OAH198, and I think as long as the conversation is still relevant, it's fine to continue to talk about something. The reason why posters get bent out of shape about resurrecting old threads is that likely what was originally posted about is no longer relevant. Such as here- I posted this in October and we bought a house (different house) in November, that we moved into in March.

For what it's worth, we did leave that house and planned to go back and look at it in 2 weeks if it was still around- but it wasn't. The market in our area is very hot and houses are selling above asking price. That house did sit unusually long, but someone eventually came along who was prepared to pay for it. We weren't too bent out of shape though, we weren't prepared to pay that amount of money for something we'd be renovating. We put in offers on 2 other houses that didn't work out, and saw a total of 21 houses. In the end we bought a house that we never expected to, and we love it. While we were sad to "lose" out on 2 of the houses we bid on, in the end, we think it was for the best- we would have been at our max budget with no additional money to furnish said houses.