Buying my first home. Fill me in home owners.
 

Hey everyone. I am buying my first home and I am very excited. Just put in an offer for a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath, two story home for 185,000. Being a noob to buying a house, what should I look into regarding insurance (flood, earthquake, hail, etc), unexpected or expected fees, property tax, and a whole bunch of whatever it takes to be a home owner. I do not have a family and am not married or have any baby daddy issues. I'm 26 years old. I qualified for a fixed 30 year loan of 4.75%.

I know that I need to swap out all the door locks and knobs with my own because I don't know how many sets of keys are out there. Anything else?

Good luck with your buy it can't get any lower out there

185K for a house, good lord if you doubled that price then maybe you could find a 3 bedroom condo out by me... Jersey really freakin' sucks. I forgot that there are places where stuff isn't crazy expensive.

^this lol

:iagree:

I'm sure that house was 500k+ a few years ago. Lots of foreclosers out there. Sacramento ranks #10 in the nation in forclosures. Its a buyers market

Congrats on your 1st home, it is a great experience. I'm sure every area of the country has different policeis on what coverage you should buy. I know when we bought this house they offered us a package that covered everything for the first year, appliances that came with the house, furnace/air conditioner, garage door opener and so on. It was like 6 or 700 at the time of closing. There isn also great 1st time buyers loan programs out there. Good luck

Hopefully you ponied up for a home inspector before closing. These dudes crawl all around the house and find problems that you can usually get "the other side" to pay for.

it's def worth the money. hell i think the mortgage company we went through made it mandatory. making sure your/ their investment isn't a money pit

Not mandatory here for sure, I had to shell out the money myself. Don't quite remember how much it was, although I'm sure it was less than a grand. (Maybe 500-700).

Dude found three or four things that I made the homeowner fix before I purchased, including a cracked roof tile that could have lead to disaster.

Yes I will be sending out a home inspector to scavenge through the house. When I toured the home everything looked visibly in great shape, but you never know for sure. If the seller accepts my offer, we can close as soon as the end of February.

I was living out of a apartment till I landed a very well paying job. After a year or so I had saved up enough money to buy a real nice house. I payed 275k. Got my house apraised couple months back for 325k after me fixing up some of the minor issues. STL living can be real exspensive but the the job pays so I play :).

I'm a realtor down here in socal. Sounds like the loan your getting has a decent rate. Before close of escrow theres a checklist of things that need to be completed, I know that banks around here in socal have mandatory house inspectors and appraisers go in and check everything out before they give you the loan, not sure what its like in norcal, it should be around the same.

As to the fire, flood, earthquake hazards, when your agent has you sign the escrow papers the majority of the papers in that packet should be from the title company that has done research on the house and there would be a check list of natural hazards that have a potential of happening.

As to what insurance you need, well your lender requires you to get fire insurance at a minimum. Everything else is up to you.

Fees expected and unexpected, have to talk to your agent to figure out what kind of deal hes getting you. Most of the time its a 50/50 buyer and seller pay their own fees/closing costs.

Property tax is a big issue, not sure if your home is in a new community or a older one. With newer communities, at least in socal, they carry a melaruse tax that will nearly double the property tax rates. The tax only applies to newer communities because the cities needs money to put in new schools, police stations, fire stations etc.


oh since its your first house im not sure if theres still a federal and/or state programs going on to get you a nice 17,000 tax rebate, i think you can only get 7,000? or something now might even score you a better interest rate too. i specialize in commerical properties not so much residential thats just for family/friends and stuff

just shoot me a pm if you have more questions

As others have said, congrats on your first home; I remember mine and it was awesome. First, you do not have to swap out the knobs, just the cores where the keys fit into. To safe some money, see if a locksmith can repin them to prevent other keys from allowing access (depends on the locks for repin). Get a home inspector even if it is not part of the deal; you will need to address his findings one way or another so get it done now so you can start saving if you did not include repairs as part of the contract.

Focus expenses on MUST HAVE items and budget for nice to have stuff like landscaping and paint/window dressings. Watch your debt and do not go house-poor; a home needs care which means money but you do not need to do it all at once so try to stagger so you are not getting into CC debt. Watch your neighborhood and see what others are doing to freshen up their home; do not replace a bunch of stuff or invest in improvements if no one else is doing so.

Upgrade very carefully and cheaply; do not put more into your home than you can get in return even if you REALLY want it such as granite counters. If no one in the area is spending money on it, do not do it or wait until you know the market has turned around.

Just my thoughts for what they are worth. We are on our 6th home now and thrilled with the purchasing power here in SOCA and the low interest rates. Hang in there, 5 years should yield you enough of a downpayment for your next home......

Good Luck, I'm a realtor and have owned 3 homes, the last I built. I never liked homeowners associations. Hope you dont have to put up with one. Make sure you can easily afford the PITI. And dont buy with a girlfriend on the mortgage note and deed. Keep it to yourself. Good luck again