The post on Bees who eloped/had small weddings got me thinking... many of the Bees who had small weddings said that doing so allowed them to buy a house sooner, so I am curious - where did buying a house fit into your engagement-marriage-TTC-parenting timeline?
Would you go back and do it differently if you could?
132 votes
wonderful cherry / 21504 posts
We just purchased our condo a month and a half ago-- 3+ years after marriage, 8 months after baby was born. We were planning to rent for a few more years but an opportunity presented itself so we took the plunge. We have never felt a rush to own, since we live in the city, but now I'm glad we do.
wonderful kiwi / 23653 posts
Voted for before wedding. After we got engaged we were pretty much wedding planning & house hunting at the same time! Closed 2 months before wedding, renovations galore, ended up moving in the night of our wedding!
GOLD / pomegranate / 3688 posts
DH and I bought a house together about a year before we got engaged. We had already been living together for 3 years, had the down payment, and really wanted to own (mostly for tax reasons and it was a *great* investment). Our parents thought we were completely insane.
blogger / pomegranate / 3201 posts
We went into escrow, then got engaged when we closed on the house. So I picked pre-engagement, but it was so close.
pineapple / 12793 posts
We bought almost four years after marriage. It was a three year search that I'm so glad is over.
GOLD / wonderful coconut / 33402 posts
DH owned a condo before we got married. Then when we started TTC, we started looking for a house. We rent our condo right now. Hopefully soon we can sell it to break even.
persimmon / 1121 posts
We had a small wedding, but it didn't allow us to buy a house any sooner. I always wanted to do marriage, house, baby in that order, but life circumstances, plus a very high cost of living area, plus not living where we want to settle down has resulted in putting buying a house on hold for quite some time. I was so so jealous of all my friends who were buying houses but I've come to terms with the realization that I'll be almost 40 by the time I buy a house, and that's okay with me. I don't think I would do anything differently.
grapefruit / 4278 posts
DH owned a home before we ever met, where we lived together before we were engaged. We're in the process of selling it now.
watermelon / 14206 posts
We don't have a timeline for anything. We just keep doing things as we feel ready for them.
pomegranate / 3809 posts
We bought the house before the wedding, but after getting engaged. We'd started talking about it and looking before getting engaged, but I refused to buy without an engagement, and he refused to move into "my" house and pay "rent" if I bought on my own. There was no correlation in timing due to finances since we had enough to cover both, though 90% of the down payment came from me, which is why I wanted a pending marriage first.
pineapple / 12053 posts
Four years into marriage, have a 16 month old and buying a home isn't on our radar yet.
coconut / 8854 posts
We got married in Oct 2011, and then bought our house in June of 2012!
pineapple / 12234 posts
We bought a 3 months after getting married. If we hadn't had such costly wedding, we probably would have bought sooner with more $$ down.
pear / 1639 posts
DH owned a house when we met. When we got relocated, we sold it and rented in our new location. While renting, we got married and had a baby. We bought a house when LO was 10 months.
pomelo / 5820 posts
We bought a townhome before we got engaged. Buying made more sense than renting to us.
grapefruit / 4085 posts
We bought a co-op a few months before getting married. Almost 4 years in and we've just sold it and are buying a house 
cantaloupe / 6017 posts
We have a one year old, and won't be buying until she is 4 or 5.
We got married while my husband was in med school, and had our daughter when he started residency. We won't purchase a house until he has completed residency (2 more years), and been working at his job for at least a year.
coconut / 8430 posts
We bought our home in June and got married in August! It was an expensive year!!!!
pear / 1657 posts
We've been married almost 5 years, bought our home almost 3 years ago, and are expecting our first LO in June. We really hate moving and with the state of the economy at the time it made sense to make a longer term investment, so we stretched a bit to buy a home we could grow into.
GOLD / wonderful olive / 19030 posts
We bought a house a few months before getting engaged. I swore that I would never live with a man before being engaged, and then told DH to put the money saved for the ring toward the down payment. Little did I know he already had bought the ring and was waiting for it to arrive.
squash / 13764 posts
We bought a weekend house after we had LO; we still rent for our primary residence and that may or may not change in the next few years--it's not really a priority!
GOLD / pomegranate / 3938 posts
I bought my home before I married my husband We were together at the time and certain to be married. However, I was ready to buy something and it was important for me to do without him. I was raised by a single mom who had her general single-mom struggles. Owning my own home has been awesome! We still live in it and its still in my name.
hostess / wonderful apple seed / 16729 posts
No kids at this point, so we will be buying a home after we have kids. We don't want to buy a home where we live, since we plan on moving back to the east coast after having kids. So no rush on buying a home soon. We have been married for almost 5 years.
nectarine / 2465 posts
We went under contract about a month before our wedding, and then closed 2 weeks after. It worked out well because the bulk of the down payment was paid at closing so we had wedding money to use
nectarine / 2272 posts
We live in NYC so everything is a little different here. The money were are currently spending on the adoption could have gone towards a down payment. So we're definitely pushing home ownership off a bit. But we eventually plan on buying in the city (prob Queens). In the meantime we love the freedom of renting. No fixing anything and no taxes, surprise expenses, no working on the house on the weekends. It's nice!!
Eta: NYC requires a 20-25 percent down payment which for us would be over $100k. And we paid for our wedding and graduate school.
wonderful pomelo / 30692 posts
We bought our home after we got engaged. I had pretty much been refusing to buy a house without being engaged, so as soon as we got engaged, we started the search! And then once we had the house, we were feeling pretty broke, so we decided to have a small wedding at our new house!
GOLD / wonderful pomegranate / 28905 posts
Pre-engagement. We had been dating about 5-6 years at that point. Mortgage was only slightly more rent. We still had a big wedding. No regrets.
bananas / 9227 posts
Before the wedding, after getting engaged. We finalized the paperwork in March, moved-in in June and got married in October.
coconut / 8498 posts
We bought about a year and a half after we got married. We didn't pay for our wedding, though, which obviously makes a huge difference.
pomelo / 5607 posts
Our wedding had nothing to do with our house purchasing. For one thing, my parents paid for the wedding. For another, DH's job involves moving a lot, so we didn't want to commit to buying a house until we knew we'd be in one place for at least a year or two.
GOLD / wonderful pea / 17697 posts
4 years this fall with a 21 month old and haven't yet, which is ultimately a good thing since we're only just now getting to a place in our lives where we want to put down roots.
nectarine / 2834 posts
We rented for most of our dating/engagement/early marriage because DH was in grad school and we didnt know where he'd get a job. He ended up getting a job in NYC so we rented until after DD was born. He then got another job in the suburbs so we bought a house out in the burbs when DD was 14 months old!
GOLD / cantaloupe / 6581 posts
We started looking for a condo before we got engaged, but didn't find anything we wanted. About 6 months after we married we started to look again, and we were able to get a house exactly 9 months after we married.
We went to Vegas because our parents were unable and unwilling to help with wedding costs, and the only thing I regret is not having my family with me at my wedding. I'm the only person in our social group who has been able to afford a house without parental help, so nope, I wouldn't change a thing.
pear / 1992 posts
We live in a city where renting is SUPER cheap, so we actually planned on renting longer than we did to keep saving. I really hate moving and our rental was big enough for the three of us, but our landlord was switching to a property management company we didn't like so we bought instead of renewing.
We'd had a moderately expensive wedding for our financial situation at the time (because we were fresh out of college) and LO was about 8 months old when we moved. Funny thing is, our landlord is now our neighbor! We only moved 5 blocks
cantaloupe / 6800 posts
We bought a house 6 months after we got married. I actually took a pregnancy test the first weekend in our new house and was pregnant. That pregnancy didn't work out but all of those things tried to happen all at once.
nectarine / 2771 posts
We got married and subsequently spent out first year house hunting. We closed on our current home the week after our one year anniversary.
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