2. Do a drive by. If the house is vacant, get out and look through windows and try the doors to see if you can get in. Poke around the yard, check out the neighborhood.
3. After the drive by, pick your favorites. Start dreaming about what it must look like inside and about the potential that is there.
4. Have your realtor (your extremely kind brother-in-law, in my case) show you your favorite house or two.
5. Fall in love with one of them (once again, this may not be in your price range). At this point you already know exactly what room will be used for what. You know you are planning to paint the living room this color, but are still figuring out the kitchen. The piano will go on that wall. The computer will be in that corner. This picture will hang here, and you'll need to check out TJ Max to see if you can find something for that wall over there. Oh, and the yard! Just think of the things you are going to do to the yard. The raspberries will go in that corner (lots of them). The garden will be just here. I think an apple tree would go nicely there. Oh, and this little spot will be perfect for roses...
~In our case, we usually make plans for how we want to remodel the place eventually as well. We will come up with a whole new floor plan. We usually end up staying up late into one evening making plans for all we are going to do to this place. In our case, the house doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to have the potential to become that way.
6. Start making plans for how you can make this beauty yours. This can be tricky, especially if it is not in your price range. What could you sell? Is it worth it in the end? Maybe you should look in a lower price bracket. Maybe there is some other hang up. At this point you may end up going back to step one. It might not work out.
7. Have your realtor call their realtor to get a feel for the place. At this point you may find out something fatal about the place that will then send you back to step one (e.g. the foundation is settling and would cost hundreds of thousands to fix).
~It should be noted that each time you have to return to step one you are crushed, because you just knew, just knew! that this time you had found "The One."
8. Write up an offer.
9. Find out if you can finance the house. This step could send you back to step one as well. (This can come before writing up an offer. Actually, if you are responsible it will, but sometimes you think you can and only find out after that there is a hiccup. Speaking of hiccups, the baby has them right now, poor guy.)
10. Now comes the agonizing wait for the sellers to respond. All you can do is hope that they will be agreeable. At this point something usually goes wrong for us. For example, the house might be a short sale and we simply can't wait that long (there is nothing very short about a short sale as far as the buyer is concerned). Anyway, whatever the reason, Ammon and I usually end up going back to step one at this point. Thus the cycle beings again.
Alternate ending (which is rare at best (but then, how often do most people buy houses? For some reason Ammon and I are a little strange in that we love to house hunt, except for when we are not living close by the market we are trying to buy in)):
11. They counter, and we accept. The details are all ironed out.
12. All the little things get done in the mean time. (These steps are not usually this smooth, but for the interest of our sanity, let's hope for the best.)
13. Closing comes and the deal is done. Hooray! we have a new house.
Right now we are on step 10. We hope to hear the counter offer soon. Buying a house can be stressful. It is really hard for me right now because I just want to set up a place of my own and have it all ready for baby. Luckily, we have a brilliant realtor; that makes things go a lot better. Wish us luck. And here's hoping that they will see the wisdom in a carpet allowance. I don't want to live on bright pink carpet!
2 comments:
Good luck with everything! Where are you looking for houses? Oh, and pink carpet isn't the worst thing! It took us 2 years to finally get rid of our bright blue and pink carpet! Now I just need to get rid of the orange/brown thing in the basement!
I hope you get it!
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