Buying a House

When buying a house there is more then just going the internet or driving around and finding the best house on the market. I should know I am currently buying my first home and feeling the stress and the excitement at the same time.

When buying a home you indeed start with the internet looking over many homes these days. Then when you find the first one or several you are interested in you contact a realtor who tends to be the listing agent for that home. This however is not normally the first home you buy but this tends to be your agent for the rest of the process. You may change agents as you get closer to the one you want but not likely as they will first make sure you are intersted and wiling to put backing to this possiblity not wasting their time.

The first house I found I will not say who but I will say I did not consider them my final agent. I was at this time looking with my boyfriend for our first home to share with his kids and us. He however was not fully interested and over time my agent began to realize there was really only one willing to buy a home the other was a little too reluctant to put the money down. It came down to the agent asking for our 500 dollars upfront and my boyfriend buying a truck in place of that leaving both myself and my agent in stitches over the mess. We had already looked at over 40 houses on the internet and narrowed down to 20 to drive by and then 7 that we looked through thoroughly.

I had not given up on the idea but the agent had pretty much washed his hands of us. I really can't blame him at all for that. We had gone through and filled out the pre-approval and was accepted and finally we even had given our private information. I was upset and the agent was done. Luckily we went through a mortgage lender that was a third party and was still willing to do the work if I wanted a house.

I did want a house and since my boyfriend and I did not quite see the same dreams I began the process again but this time for my dreams, my wishes, and my needs. I knew that I wanted a fireplace and a place for a garden. I had hoped for a 3 bedroom but would like a 2 bedroom and I knew there were areas in the city of Indianapolis I did not want to be. I would prefer the outside of Indianapolis in the suburbs.

I found my possible home and its agent as well. Female agent single mother knew what I was about and looking for and willing to help. She knew I was tired of renting and throwing money away but I did not have much money to start with and I ould need to keep it with either a small budget or a fixer upper.

I knew I was looking for cheap maybe too cheap but I had to look. We first started with below the budget and all we found were houses I could never get any backing. So I worked out my budget and said I could handle $50000 maybe a bit more but that is where we will look. My lender said that I had picked a good number for myself to work on and he gave me a good pre-approval that was enough at later date that would be able to go more then that but not too much.

We began looking for the home again first using the internet and my agent's search engine. Finding 20 homes she showed me 3 that night and sent the rest with me to look at my leisure. Of the 20 I found 10 I was willing to see but a good agent knows more about them then you do. Perhaps she has already seen them or perhaps done some research on them to find out if we should even consider it. I had to widen my thoughts of what I wanted in a home but never fully got rid of wishes.

We saw homes with and without fireplaces in and out of the city or countryside until we found a few I really felt I could consider. I took my mother and a friend with me for a third and forth pair of ideas and eyes. I took a flashlight, tape measure, and camera to get what I needed to make my decision before putting any money down. I then went through 5 houses 2 that I liked and had already seen with just my agent our first time. 3 of the houses we found the troubles we needed to find but the 2 I had already seen before I decided were worth looking at and taking pictures. I was not fully set on either one of them but one had a fireplace and the other did not. The one with the fireplace has outdated electrical system and the one that did not had a new system. It was a toss up until the pictures in my digital camera came to be viewed on the computer.

Luckily I had a friend that was an electrician and another friend that was a contractor. These two looked at my pictures and told me what to expect and what price for repairs I would be looking at. The one with fresh electrical system had possible termites and issues with cracking under the windows suggesting settling or moisture. It was raining when I saw these houses and it was a good thing because there I could find out if the foundation when I took crawl space photos would show issues of moisture. Back at the computer I slowly saw what i needed to see just by poking the camera just under the foundation and not actually going into the crawl space. What I learned was that the electrical system tho outdated and the gutters of the home I really liked were not nearly as bad as the house that had work on the electrical done. I chose the house with outdated electrical system which I will now call my rose home.