House Hunting Update

L&J2012 · December 2011

Well, FI and I made it to 8 open houses yesterday, between 12:30 and 4pm (impressive, eh?). It was fun, and we managed to cross a lot of them off our list (one had an entirely pink bathroom from the 50s, one felt like an old person had died there or been placed in a nursing home and it backed up to a cemetary, another had blue bathrooms from the 50s...)

There were two that we loved. The first is a four-bedroom, 2.5 bath colonial with a completely updated kitchen (actually, pretty much everything is new. Roof, flooring, porch, garage floor, backyard patio, etc). It's priced a bit high, but the sellers have already moved so they are looking to get rid of it, and it's December so there's not much interest. Only problem is it doesn't have AC, but if we can get a 6% seller's assist that will cover the installation of it. Dfefinitely number 1 on our list.

Number two was in a different town. It was cheaper, but has higher taxes. It only has 3 (smallish) bedrooms, and one in the basement, but the kitchen was reall nice and it's a fairly new build (1998). It had a nice deck and patio. Only problems with this one were that the previous owners have a cat, and FI is allergic, so any carpeting would have to come out right away. We're ideally looking for 4 bedrooms, so that we won't have to move for a while. It's also on a pretty main street, and there's not much of a yard besides that which goes right up to that street. It's number 2 on our list, though, but it is very nice.

Today we're going to get pre-approved, and then (hopefully, if the sellers let us) go see two more houses with our agent. Next Sunday we'll be going to 5 more houses (4 with our agent), so we're hoping that after next weekend we'll have a better idea as to what we'd like to do. We'd like to make an offer before the end of the year, because a 60-day closing would bring us to March 1st, which is when we'd like the keys.

If nothing else we see this week wows us, I think we'll be going with house #1

Whichever one we go with, on our second visit I'll take pictures and post them!

L&J2012 · December 2011

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-club-boards_june-2012-weddings_house-hunting-update?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20Club%20BoardsForum:3ae4d68d-f10a-4dec-8810-da13c14a7b86Discussion:7c5957f9-021c-457a-bd71-3c5f186a59bePost:52a2e37a-06d7-4beb-b37f-c2b46b83dfb2">Re: House Hunting Update</a>:
[QUOTE]That's so exciting! I know looking at houses is fun and can also be stressful. Just some food for thought: - I see you're in New York, so you might not get this opportunity now, but if you have a rainy day, go to the house you really like and check the basement and the attic. Even if you get some snow and the next day is really nice so there is a bunch of run-off, go to the home and see how it handled the snow. - Visit the house a few more times before making an offer. I swear different things will stick out to you each time. Take flashlights with you (even if the lighting is good, a strong flashlight will show more) and look around in all of the closets, along all of the walls (especially in the basement). It sounds like you were rushed through the homes during the open houses. While that lets you see a lot more homes in a day and eliminate some choices right off the bat, I would highly suggest going BACK to the ones you liked and hang out there for a while. Our realtor was really awesome with this and we literally spent many hours over several days in the home we originally purchased prior to putting an offer on it. We visited our home about 5 times before putting in an offer. As with the one you really like, no one was living there at the time, so this was very easy for us to do. I can't think of anything else right now, but we just went through all of this (and in NY) so if you have any questions, feel free to PM me. Good luck
Posted by julbgordo[/QUOTE]

<div>Thanks for the advice! The one we really like is up on a hill (driveway's a little steep, but not too bad), so we're not too concerned about runoff, but we definitely will check. There doesn't appear to be an attic in that one. And actually, we're having lots of chances. While Buffalo's had some snow already, we in Rochester haven't seen anything but a few snowflakes. I'm encouraged by the fact that there are a lot of new updates in this house, especially the roof. I believe that was a complete tear-off two years ago.</div><div>
</div><div>We actually crossed one off our list because it had a sump pump, a backup sump pump and a gas generator. Didn't seem to bode well! It was also at the bottom of a steep hill/cliff.</div><div>
</div><div>When we narrow it down some more we're going back with our dads, who know what to look for, and we'll spend more time there. We managed to cross a lot off our list because one thing we want are nice enough bathrooms that need no or almost work, and a lot of them were very, very dated. We took notes on all of them so that we can go back and review. But some we just knew we wouldn't want to deal with.</div><div>
</div><div>Thanks again for the advice, and I'll be sure to PM you if I think of any questions! I'll update again tomorrow if we really like either of the two we see tonight (they're nice, so fingers crossed!). If they're nothing special I'll update next Monday after our next round of houses!</div>

sprtychick10 · December 2011

thanks for the update! good luck with the search

AlliJae · December 2011

Sounds like an overall good experience. Can't wait to see pics

ncd5015 · December 2011

Sounds like a productive day! Glad you found a couple that you like. Good luck with the pre-approval today and the rest of house hunting! It's happening so fast!

julbgordo · December 2011

That's so exciting! I know looking at houses is fun and can also be stressful. Just some food for thought:

- I see you're in New York, so you might not get this opportunity now, but if you have a rainy day, go to the house you really like and check the basement and the attic. Even if you get some snow and the next day is really nice so there is a bunch of run-off, go to the home and see how it handled the snow.

- Visit the house a few more times before making an offer. I swear different things will stick out to you each time. Take flashlights with you (even if the lighting is good, a strong flashlight will show more) and look around in all of the closets, along all of the walls (especially in the basement).

It sounds like you were rushed through the homes during the open houses. While that lets you see a lot more homes in a day and eliminate some choices right off the bat, I would highly suggest going BACK to the ones you liked and hang out there for a while. Our realtor was really awesome with this and we literally spent many hours over several days in the home we originally purchased prior to putting an offer on it. We visited our home about 5 times before putting in an offer. As with the one you really like, no one was living there at the time, so this was very easy for us to do.

I can't think of anything else right now, but we just went through all of this (and in NY) so if you have any questions, feel free to PM me.

Good luck

MMRoberts11 · December 2011

Julie gave some great advice. Good luck and keep us updated.

julbgordo · December 2011

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-club-boards_june-2012-weddings_house-hunting-update?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20Club%20BoardsForum:3ae4d68d-f10a-4dec-8810-da13c14a7b86Discussion:7c5957f9-021c-457a-bd71-3c5f186a59bePost:5aa8e4b8-9200-45c8-86f4-ef92acf5c65a">Re: House Hunting Update</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: House Hunting Update : Thanks for the advice! The one we really like is up on a hill (driveway's a little steep, but not too bad), so we're not too concerned about runoff, but we definitely will check. There doesn't appear to be an attic in that one. And actually, we're having lots of chances. While Buffalo's had some snow already, we in Rochester haven't seen anything but a few snowflakes. I'm encouraged by the fact that there are a lot of new updates in this house, especially the roof. I believe that was a complete tear-off two years ago. We actually crossed one off our list because it had a sump pump, a backup sump pump and a gas generator. Didn't seem to bode well! It was also at the bottom of a steep hill/cliff. <strong>When we narrow it down some more we're going back with our dads, who know what to look for, and we'll spend more time there</strong>. We managed to cross a lot off our list because one thing we want are nice enough bathrooms that need no or almost work, and a lot of them were very, very dated. We took notes on all of them so that we can go back and review. But some we just knew we wouldn't want to deal with. Thanks again for the advice, and I'll be sure to PM you if I think of any questions! I'll update again tomorrow if we really like either of the two we see tonight (they're nice, so fingers crossed!). If they're nothing special I'll update next Monday after our next round of houses!
Posted by L&J2012[/QUOTE]

<div>That will be great! It definitely pays off to give the home your own little inspection prior to having the legit inspector look it over. They do miss things, so if you have someone who knows what to look for, that all works in your favor.</div><div>
</div><div>Good luck doing some more house hunting tonight <img src="http://cdn.cl9.vanillaforums.com/downloaded/ver1.0/content/scripts/tinymce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-smile.gif" border="0" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /></div>

L&J2012 · December 2011

Our dads both do tons of work around their houses and they both know what can potentially cause problems, so we'll be glad to have them along. We watch a ton of HGTV so we did our own little inspection (one house had a deteriorating side garage door, like literally if we kicked it it would fall apart, tons of others had mold and mildew and they weren't keeping their gutters clean, etc.). So, we're hoping that between the 4 of us we catch anything that might be a big problem!

Thanks! It is very exciting, though I'm not sure it's sunk it yet how big of a move this is for us. It'll probably hit me when we sign the contract haha.

Zimsgirl · December 2011

Post pics when you find one

hlzander · December 2011

Good luck with your search! We are beginning ours as well and it can be so fun but so stressful at the same time!

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