Hellobee Boards

We went on a rather fast timeline with a move in date of June 1. Feb: Secured Realtor we trusted (personal friend/award winning) and pre-approval with loan officer of his choice. Feb/Mar: Looked at homes constantly (weekend going to open houses) and put in two bids. April: Easter Sunday offer accepted. Followed through on financing process and home inspection based on realtor's referral. Closed last week of May.
Our must-haves are likely very different than yours because we bought a house. But affordable-within budget- and NOT in xyz area were our main priorities.

Definitely get pre approved first! And since you have a highly recommended realtor, I'd set up a meeting with her as well. She will know the pace of the market in your area and will be able to help advise you with timing. We just celebrated a year in our first home, must-haves were a yard, at least one fist floor bedroom, and schools.

A couple things we learned through the process was to trust our own financial instincts, and to be flexible. The bank approved us for a significant amount more that what we thought we wanted to spend and initially we looked at a few homes in that range. We quickly downshifted to the range we felt most comfortable and I'm so glad we did!! Like mentioned above, sometimes the markets move so quickly, you'll have to be prepared to make offers same day. That was tough for us to swallow at first, but once we saw how fast the houses we were interested in we're selling, it got easier!
Good luck!! It's an exciting process!

Determine your own budget first, and don't let what you get preapproved for change that budget.

Agree on above points to buy what is comfortable, not what you qualify for because that number might be much higher. Also if you see something you like, get ready to jump on it quickly. We got ours under list because we swiped it off the market the first weekend of its open house.

@NCSUchick27: I would start looking now. We just moved from the NoVa area and close friends of ours who wanted to buy ended up taking a year to find a house because they kept getting outbid by offers above what the homes appraised for--I think they were outbid 5 times! That was 3 years ago but I don't know that the market has changed that much.

We bought our first home last spring. We started looking in Jan, and got preapproved through our realtor's mortgage lender (we ultimately found a better deal with an online lender, but didn't find them until we were ready to put an offer in). Since we were moving a couple hours away we could only see houses on the weekend, which means that we missed a couple houses in our preferred neighborhood. But we put in an offer at the end of Feb and closed at the end of April. In our area inventory was pretty low in Jan/Feb, and started picking up in March/April.

We interviewed realtors and the one we chose had us get pre-approved right away. As others have mentioned, determine your own budget not what the bank says you can afford. Our realtor set us up with automatic listings that got emailed to us and it went pretty fast. I would also start looking now, then you can be prepared for the spring rush. We got in a bidding war for our first home, lost the house, then the other buyers financing fell through so we got the house in the end! We also bought a town house and I would say don't get sucked into spending more than your budget if the market is competitive. There are ALWAYS more town houses that have a similar look if you get outbid or into a bidding war (thankfully DW didn't let us blow the budget!)

Our lease was up end of August. In January we got in touch with a mortgage broker for a pre-approval and started going to open houses. We randomly found a real estate agent in march, who was a customer of DH's. The first weekend we looked at homes, we put an offer in.. that was April. It ended up being a short sale. Things went bad and we backed out in July. We started looking again and found a new home in August. We were able to ask our landlord to go on a month to month lease so long as we gave them a two months notice. We closed end of October.

While sticking with your budget and knowing what you can buy is obviously super important (and seems you have figured out), I would recommend going to some open houses first. We thought we knew what we wanted when we were talking about buying a house, but when you start looking through them you get a better sense of space and what you really are looking for. It made the process easier when we were officially looking at homes.

We live in an expensive state and we were really flexible with our needs/wants. Non-negotiables were wanting a single family home, space, and 3 bedrooms. We are handy and were willing to do some fixing up. I also wanted a garage and fireplace. Looking through homes we realized that my wants really weren't necessary and didn't realize how important house flow is. Not that we need open concept or something, but there are some funky layout homes. Also, anything that needed a total gut job we decided was too much.

We just purchased our first home this summer so while it's fresh in my mind I can totally help.

You mentioned that your lease is up in July and you would like to move in June of July...I would really suggest checking if your lease can be extended on a month to month basis orrrrr if leases can be broke with proof of home ownership. The only reason I suggest this is because we weren't able to do month to month but we were able to break our lease without any extra charges. We settled in late June and had to clear out our apartment on July 5th. I thought it would be enough time to paint and get everything ready without taking time off of work and I was super wrong soooo just a thought.

I did get a realtor first only because she had different banks that offered different mortgages and we were able to pick the best deal.

We started the process in May and settled in June, which was a lot quicker than I expected so I was super happy about that.

One major suggestion I would make is don't be afraid to jump on a house if you know it's the one. Our house was one of the first houses we saw, day one of house hunting and we just knew.

Our must have list; 3 bedroom, eat in kitchen, backyard, and family neighborhood. We were able to get all 4.

Best of luck to you throughout the process!

Agreed- home inspection brings so much to the table. We also went on weekly drives with our realtor AND looked on our own at the same time. The house we eventually bought was through our own picking but our realtor was invaluable in heading us in the right direction, giving us food for thought and educating us on the process.

@NCSUchick27: PPs already gave good advice--but just some info regarding townhouses specifically. When you are with your realtor and looking at individual units, make sure to ask questions about the HOA. Ask about monthly fees, what it covers, who does front/back lawn maintenance, what HOA standards are for renovating/paint/landscaping, etc. Check out the HOAs financials and see how often they have HOA increases or one-time assessments. Find out if the HOA covers any of your insurance/property tax (probably not, but that happens occasionally).

I owned both a condo and townhouse before marriage, and both times when I went through the buying process, I was surprised by how different each group of condos/townhouses were in terms of HOAs and what was covered. I looked at some Townhouses were the HOA fee was really expensive per month, but it covered more stuff--lawn maintenance, other common amenities, parking structures or auto-open gates/maintenance into the parking area, etc. And since you share walls (and sometimes roof line), you want to find out what happens if something happens to the structure that is shared. Does HOA insurance cover it? That kind of thing. Does the HOA have rules about how you can paint your unit or what window coverings can be used? Do you have to move your own lawn and if so, are there rules about grass length?

I ended up buying a townhouse that didn't have great HOA financials, but also had very low fees and basically covered nothing except front lawn maintenance and auto-gate maintenance and clickers. So my home insurance had to be really comprehensive.

Also, some townhomes are subject to different specific rules if you have an FHA loan--the HOAs have to apply for FHA approved status. A realtor can tell you about that.

I loved my little townhouse and was able to sell it 4 years after buying for a nice little profit, just because the neighborhood had appreciated a bit. And I loved having someone else be responsible for grass mowing and I actually liked the perceived security of having neighbors sharing walls with me. Good luck!