Feb 08 2009
Looking for a House
We’ve been trying to buy a house for nearly a year now. Our two offers on houses in the last state we lived in were turned down for various reasons, and then I got it in my head that it was time to move to a new place.
So, we’re still renting. There are a lot of ups to renting at this point, given that we can get out of our payments if we need to by waiting until the end of the lease, paying the rest of the lease in one lump sum, or maybe save some money by moving to a cheaper place.
However, like any young couple, we want a place we can call our own. Where we live, the houses, for the most part, do not have a lot of curbside appeal. So,our ideas of what kind of house we’d want to live in have had to change.
Our financial situation has changed, too. Work is intermittent for my husband, I took a large pay cut when we moved here, and now we don’t know how long my job will hold out. On top of all that, houses here are a lot more expensive than the last place we lived.
Still, I found four houses $100,000 and under today, and we went to look at them. Two of them, I was ready to call the realtor right then while we sat looking at the house from the curb. However, we decided it wouldn’t be fair to the realtor to come out to show us these places given that we aren’t even sure we could get preapproved for much of anything at this point, even with good credit. That, and we’re in no financial situation to buy right now, anyway.
The loan ball game seems to be in a state of flux, and I don’t know what is what anymore. Eight months or so ago, things were really different and more accessible for first-time buyers like us. I don’t know what is going on anymore. Our lease isn’t up until the end of July, so we couldn’t really move on those two houses anyway, even if we wanted to.
So, we’re still looking and wondering what is in store. The dog needs a place to run so he’s not running like a nut from one side of the room to the other, up the stairs, down the stairs, and back to where he started all the time. He’ll repeat this scenario about 5 or 6 times before calming down. I think we’re going a little stir crazy, too.
Good luck on your house hunt. Look for good bones. By that I mean consider a house if all it needs is paint or the grass cut. Don’t buy one with major problems no matter how much you want it.