How to buy a home (First time buyer advice sought)?

[Safire]

Subject line says it all. We are moving 200 miles away to a "cheaper" (ha!) COL area where we know NO ONE. Friends recommended a couple of local agents but neither knew any agent in the small rural area we are looking to buy in. Our credit union has a referral program and we were referred to an agent and a long term resident of that area. We have not met him in person. We spoke to him on the phone and emailed twice, and feel he may be super busy and this may be a challenge as we are not local. On the contrary he may be just right for us as he was born and raised in the area & lived there all his life. But if he has too many clients and does not respond within a couple of days, I don't know if that would work. Also, when we did talk to him he seemed to be really PUSHY and that makes me uncomfortable.

I believe in trusting my gut. How should we find an agent we can trust in this new location since we know no one there?

PS: We had a very bad experience trying to buy a new build. We were given tons of disclosures AFTER we had already signed the purchase agreement and put down the earnest deposit. We refused to sign off on engineering drawings and mechanical / electrical code, as we are not engineers, and a document that quite plainly stated we had been in escrow with them previously on another property, changed our minds and are buying this home, so owe them $$$$$$$$$$$ "outside of escrow". Agent tried to make it seem like it would only apply IF we changed our mind but the dodginess made us back off. It's really all overwhelming and I could do with some advice if we were to go back to try to buy a new build from another builder or buy an existing home but with an agent we don't know at all.

Help!

 

[jm67]

First, why not rent for a year first? Buying a house is a big commitment to an area that’s new to you.

If you do buy, being comfortable with your agent is important. Interview at least three and ask them questions about experience, knowledge of the area, pricing trends, etc. Since commission is paid by the seller that’s not such a concern. For names, you might ask a question on a local Reddit forum - you’ll mostly get “real” people’s opinions.

 

[DrRoy]

First, why not rent for a year first? Buying a house is a big commitment to an area that’s new to you.

If you do buy, being comfortable with your agent is important. Interview at least three and ask them questions about experience, knowledge of the area, pricing trends, etc. Since commission is paid by the seller that’s not such a concern. For names, you might ask a question on a local Reddit forum - you’ll mostly get “real” people’s opinions.

Completely agree with this. You should rent in a new area for a while to get local knowledge and see if you really like it.

 

[latexman]

Do you have at least a 20% down payment? If not, rent.

 

[street]

I have seen first-hand how complex it is to buy a home these days. The process is long and tiring.

One question for you, when you say rural are do you a town of 400 or a town of 50K? Rural meaning is so different from peoples respective.

 

[Midpack]

First, why not rent for a year first? Buying a house is a big commitment to an area that’s new to you.

If you do buy, being comfortable with your agent is important. Interview at least three and ask them questions about experience, knowledge of the area, pricing trends, etc. Since commission is paid by the seller that’s not such a concern. For names, you might ask a question on a local Reddit forum - you’ll mostly get “real” people’s opinions.

Completely agree with this. You should rent in a new area for a while to get local knowledge and see if you really like it.

+2. Know that realtors aren’t allowed to tell you which neighborhoods are desirable and not - even though that’s crucial for buyers to know. That makes them almost useless IMO.

Renting for a year before buying is good advice - but we didn’t because moving an entire household twice would have been a costly nightmare.

If you can’t rent first to learn where you want to live, and not, you need some way to find out for yourself.

• Don't rush. We made more than 4 househunting trips over a 4 month period to make sure we really learned all we could.
• I know someone who chatted up a couple police officers, they were more than willing to spill the beans off the record - and tell you where NOT to buy and why.
• You can also look at crime maps, that speaks volumes.
• Online forums might be helpful, like city-data where you’re relocating to - you can ask anything you want to know.
• And you should always walk a prospective neighborhood to talk with as many residents as you can - IME most are totally candid with what they like and don’t like about their neighborhood.***

Good luck. You can successfully move to a new area without renting first, but it takes serious homework.

*** I did this in a nearby neighborhood, a guy was out walking with his 12 yo daughter. He told me it was a nice neighborhood with only mild issues. His daughter proceeded to tell us what the real neighborhood warts were in no uncertain terms - we learned more from her than the adult…

 

[Kork13]

Renting for a while first really is a smart idea. It gives you time to get to know the area better, narrow down exactly where you want (and don't want) to live, get to know the daily rhythm (traffic, how best to get around, what you want to live near/far from, etc.), and a variety of other factors. Plus, you'll have plenty of time to find a good realtor & do a home search without feeling rushed.

 

[Aerides]

Yeah...if you don't already live in the area, rent for a year and spend your weekends driving around checking out neighborhoods, and patrolling Zillow. Bookmark yourself houses in areas you like, and watch them and their sale points (even ones that aren't on sale).

Figure out your list of needs/wants/don't-wants, and drill down from there. Then engage a realtor once you are comfortable and have eliminated most of the "don't know!" stuff.

 

[pacergal]

Agree with those above. What is the rush to buy?
Even renting for 6 months, if you don't have to sign a years lease, would give you time to meet folks/make friends, contact realtors, get to know the area, both good and bad.
Yes, moving twice can be a pain. But much less pain than if you purchased a house and then found out it's not where you want to be!

 

[Walt34]

[*]I know someone who chatted up a couple police officers, they were more than willing to spill the beans off the record - and tell you where NOT to buy and why.

I'll second this, and I'm a retired police officer (21 years now - yay!). I even did that in the same county where I worked, but a separate police district. When I asked a couple of guys about the street where I was thinking of buying, I had to explain to them where it was. This is a good sign - it meant the area was "dead" as far as police activity went, which is what you want.

In fact, the only story they had to tell was about the time ten years prior when a couple of bad guys kidnapped a schoolteacher to do bad things to her but were seen and the chase was on. They got lost in the labyrinth of suburban sprawl and ended up on the dead end street where I was buying and were captured. The sprawl maze there was so bad that later I told visitors that if they could find their way in without a map (prior to GPS in cars) that they'd get a piece of cheese.

Burglars and such want easy ingress and egress, and too many winding streets may be a pain to navigate, but it contributes to a very low crime rate. And I knew that when house hunting. Now there are other factors of course but that is one of many to consider.

 

[MC Rider]

Get approved for a mortgage first unless paying cash. Then you will know what the bank says you can afford. Don't bother looking at things out of your price range.

 

[retire48in2018]

Realtors - I used realtors.com and read reviews and recommendations. I talked to 3 and then DW & I chose one. We refuse to sign any exclusive agreement or otherwise with agent. With offer, gave rights in writing for that home. We’ve bought and sold 9 homes in different areas as we moved - and a few times we have walked away from initial
Agent choice. Whether it’s a DW vibe, or action…

Don’t be afraid to “fire” agent and change.


As far a choosing home - take your time. Visit multiple times - at different times of day and different days of week. Talk to neighbors, etc. If in doubt - wait. We have rented most of the time in new area before buying. Sometimes, it’s for 90 days, sometimes for a year. It’s too big of an investment, IMO, to go too fast.

 

[MC Rider]

OTOH, we dived right in. Spent parts of 2 days looking at houses in and out, and i think 9 houses. Bought #8 and almost a year later are loving it. and working on upgrading and fixing things. Building a garage which is finally almost done.

But we knew we wanted the general area and spent time researching and driving all the sub areas before those 2 days. Knew what we wanted in a property, more or less. YMMV. Renting for a while is probably more prudent but there are not many rentals here. We planned the dive.

 

[Closet_Gamer]

You can get very smart on values/locations by spending time on both realtor.com and zillow. Not just what is listed, look at what sold in the last 12 months for what price. Keep a spreadsheet of the houses sold and for sale. See if you can start to predict if a house is well priced or not. Seriously, my wife and I made a game of this when shopping for a house over the last two years. We had a very good sense of the market and when the right house came along, we were able to make a major life decision in a hotel room in about four hours because we really knew the market.

+1 on renting. Many years ago I was determined to move my kids right into the permanent house for fear we would rent and then have to change school districts. That was dumb. We should have settled on the district, rented and then had time to shop. Live and learn.

Good luck.

 

[FiveDriver]

The winter holiday season is known to be a slow time of year in Real Estate. Many buyers are settled-in by the start of school in September. If your Realtor is too busy for you this time of year......what's he going to do when things get busy next Spring?

Find a local Realtor who can email you Listings as they come on the Market. This is easy to do as most MLS systems have a 'Saved Search' feature which a savvy Realtor can use to email you all the homes that match your search criteria.....Do you want a Ranch, Bi-Level or Colonial ? Recently built, or Fixer-upper? Do you want acreage ? You're not buying a house based on these emails. You're getting to know the Market Area.

You'll develop a good idea what the Price Point is for what you're looking for. Having 20% of this Price Point for a Down Payment is very important these days.

If you're only 200 miles away, you should visit your new desired area once a month. Stay the weekend, visit with your Realtor. Get to know the area. But do not sign any Exclusive Agreement' just yet. Plenty of time for that later.

Good Luck with your search. Keep us posted.

 

[Slim11]

As stated, rent, learn the area. Check out the schools morning and night. When you find an area you like drive it at all diffrent hours. So you know if there is traffic during rush hour, or its a cut through street at certain times. Look to see where the local dump is and its proximity to the area you want to buy in. Talk to the people that live where you want to buy. Anything but rush onto buying , lol. Its stressful, but planning it out will make it easier.