Lessons in Buying a Home

We've finally done it. We signed the closing paperwork. We're technically not closed yet. We have a some title/funding items that have to be completed, so we should get our keys on Friday. It may be because we don't have keys yet, but it's hard to believe that the 45 minutes we spent signing our names today was enough to end the wait of the last 52 days.

So, what have I learned?

1. Buying a foreclosure is worth the money, but be prepared for the wait. Although it's a lot less of a wait than buying a short sale, we had a 45 day closing and it still wasn't enough. Luckily, we started the process with enough of a leeway from our rental agreement. We're cutting it close, but we won't have to extend our lease.

2. Get a realtor who understands you. We started this process with a realtor who told us that the only way we can be competitive in this market is to offer $10,000 to $20,000 over asking price. If a house fit our needs on paper, he didn't get why, when we walked through the house, that we knew it just wasn't our house. With our current realtor, she happily walked through house after house. She helped us narrow down the homes that fit us on paper and she patiently waited for us to feel out each place. She stood by us as we offered $7,000 less than the asking price on our house and then helped us finalize the counter-offer of $2,000 less. That may not sound like a great deal, but the house originally sold for twice what we're buying it for.

3. Guard you credit score, but don't be discouraged if it's low. The way applying for a mortgage works is this: you have to have a high enough score to qualify for a mortgage. After that, it doesn't matter. But, if you're not high enough to qualify, you're out of luck. And having a perfect score isn't any more help than having the bare minimum score.

4. Cash is good, but there are lots of funding options that don't require down payments. Unfortunately, some of these programs are a lot of hassle. But, in the end they save your cash so you can use it to paint, or replace flooring, or replace lighting fixtures, or buy new doorknobs, or...

5. Beware of the overly-optimistic mortgage broker. We've had a lot of false hope because our broker used misleading phrases:
"24 to 48 hours" = "About a week"
"One or two hours" = "Next day"
"One final piece of information" = "Ha, ha, ha, ha! Got'cha!!"

6. HOAs are the most Communist institution in America. If you have the unfortunate opportunity to live in a somewhat new housing area with an HOA, you may know what I'm talking about. Even though you own your home and land, you must abide by rules set forth by the Home Owners Association. And, honestly, their rules are not too over the top, but being told by someone else what color you can paint your home or what size rocks you can use in your front yard or where you can park your car is pretty frustrating. I've never been a "Damn the Man" sort of person, but when I read through the HOA booklet (booklet, not brochure) I seriously wanted to rebel and yell "Damn the Man!" I'd post a life size cut out of Rex Manning himself, but I'll be fined $50 for having an unauthorized decoration that is out beyond the two weeks before and two weeks after the holiday time frame. Plus, I don't really know when Rex Manning Day is. The purpose of the HOA is to keep everyone as similar as possible. If everyone is the same, no one can be better than anyone else. I don't remember the American Dream consisting of "and keep everything in your backyard below the fence line so your neighbors can't see it, unless you write a letter asking for permission."

And those are a few things the last seven months have taught me.