Help! How to Buy a House?

[Firefyter]

PM sent.

[WItoTX]

Find yourself a good realtor. I have a recommendation in the Houston area, let me know if you are interested. She answered all the questions you mentioned above for me, and pointed me to someone who could answer my questions. She also saved me several thousand a year between house insurance and truck insurance.

I started with the go it alone mentality, but for a first house, I was glad to have good realtor who is good at their job help you. She had connections to insurance, banks, access to $/SF rates, etc...all which were significantly lower cost than what I was finding on my own. I bought new, so I didn't technically pay the realtor fee, but I would gladly pay the extra $$$ for my first house to have her expertise again.

[Filletem]

Buy OUTSIDE of Houston.
And by outside I mean, pick a rural area two removed from Houston..then drive to the next one out from that.. if still in Harris County... drive further.

See StanR

This for sure

[Firefyter]

I have closed on two houses this year already and in the process on a third and the appraiser is the perpetual headache. With the new "consumer protection" laws the lender can no longer use an appraiser of choice that they know will get the job done. It's luck of the draw now with "Appraisal Management Companies" just assigning the "next in line" whether they are really qualified for the property you are buying or not. I've been waiting three weeks now for the lazy appraiser assigned to my deal to even LOOK at the lake house I'm buying and still waiting. You have to pay when you order the appraisal so there is no clout or ability to change appraisers.

It does cause issues, but thats what happens when the Govt steps in to fix the problems that occurred in 08. My wife has ben appraising for bout 20 yrs and shes on a 2 to 3 week turnaround because of the amount of work, if an appraiser is able to turn a report around in 3-5 days from the order date I would be leary if its in a happening market. Shes busy cause shes good at what she does. As in any business there are some undesirables.

[Hawkpuppy 1]

1. Get a loan you can afford.
2. Get pre qualified through lender of your choice.
3. Work with a highly recommended realtor, preferably someone you know that has used them. Found this out the hard way on our recent purchase here. 1st one sucked, 2nd one was awesome.

[crawdaddct]

There are plenty of nice homes in Kingwood/Houston. If your like me, your wife wont let you move out to the boonies. After I retire, we will move somewhere. My wife want to move to the Heights , I want to move out to the country. Maybe my retirement will allow both??? LOL

Lot of good advice. There are a lot of ways you can go. Since its your first mortgage there are incentives for them to give you a lone. Probably through FHA or some other program. What ever they approve you for do about half. They are crazy on their loan amounts. You can kinda roughly figure 1% for payments. $200,000 home = about $2,000 a month, give or take. That's mortgage, taxes, and insurance.

Its either go PPI or do a second mortgage to get the 20% down on the first. I've done it both ways. You pay a higher rate on the second, but you can add in improvements you want to do right off the bat.

The best way to buy a house, IMO, is to build. Find a small piece of property cheap. They are around. Buy that first. Then that is your collateral when you build. Instant equity.

Finally, if you are staying in Kingwood, I would go with one of the older home. They are built to last and have been steadily going up in value. That being said, some of those new neighborhood have some great incentives to get the price down as well. Just depends on what your like. Good luck.

[topshot]

if you want to live in a rural area- investigate USDA mortgage - zero down, no pmi

[GARY]

So my Wife and I are looking to buy our first house. We are both tired of wasting our money on apartments. Now that we believe we will be in the Houston area for good amount of time we figured it was time to get a real house. Neither one of us has bought a home before so we really don't know where to get started. We have about 6 months before our lease is up, hopefully this will give us enough time to get this ball rolling.

Where do we start?
I know we will need to get prequalified for a loan somewhere. Where is the best place to start? Anyone we should talk to?

What would be considered good rates for the mortgage?

Is it possible to get a loan with no money or little money down?
I know this would add mortgage insurance without putting 20% down.

When should we start talking with realtors to look for a place?
Right now we have just been browsing the online adds, only found a few so far we both like, but haven't actually toured any homes yet.

Right now I am bringing the only income into the house. My wife stays at home with the kids, but she will be going back to work once she completes her schooling. I know what we can afford per month, but don't know all the costs that might be associated with purchasing a home.

Any help or tips would be appreciated.

Good advice already listed..to add to that..

1) Find an area (schools, churches, commute) that makes sense for your family.
2) Do some research and find a good realtor in that area (could be as easy as who has the most signs up..though I would use word of mouth too
3) They will show you homes, pluses and minues of streets, subdivisions etc... you can only do so much online
4) They can also help you get set up for prequalifcations on loans, etc.
5) You can get out of PMI with as little as 5% down, by going with split mortgages (two mortages). I have done a 80% Primary 30 year mortgage and a 15% secondary mortgage with 5% down two times. The secondary mortgage will be higher as it is a secondary lien holder to the first mortgage. The economics have worked out for me twice, where even with the higher secondary mortgage, I was still better off financially.

[Atfulldraw]

Courtney and I just closed a loan with Stan last Friday -- it was our first mortgage for either of us.

The mortgage process is a complete pain in the ***, but Stan will let you call him at just about anytime of the day or night and vent about what a pain it is....

I don't recommend it for anyone, but if you insist....call Stan....