looking for advice on buying my first home

[Cherokeekid88]

I am in the same boat as you right now. My girl and I are in an apartment right now and are desperately looking for a house. Our lease is up in Oct and are trying to get everything together....we currently have a realtor doing the beginning stages of getting us info on some properties and when we get back from the beach, we will head over to the Credit Union to get pre qualified. I also had a questio of the bank only giving me the asking price of the house we will buy...I was hoping for a little more so that I could buy appliances, furniture, etc that the house doesn't come with....living in a one bedroom apartment, we def wouldn't have enough stuff to fill a house....

Main thing is to get pre qualified and found a house at a good price.

 

[RCman]

So how do you go about buying a house for say 50K and wanting a loan for 75K so you can do some work?

Also, could I take out more to pay off 6.8% student loans when most house loans are 3-4%?

And finally say you take a 30 year or 15 year loan, is there typically a penalty to pay off early?

It is going to depend on the bank, but it will really come down to the appraisal. Let’s say that the house is valued at $100K for easy numbers. Most banks will require a 5-20% down payment before even giving the mortgage. This means that the MAX you could take (again depending on the bank) would be $80K-$95K. Others will also require a PMI (mortgage insurance) if you are less than 20% down. So given that; if the house was selling for $85K, you’d need to come up with $5K out of pocket or be stuck with a PMI. If the house was $75K, you theoretically could take that $80K. Don’t forget closing costs, title rundown, homeowners insurance, etc.

So It's a good idea to get "preapproved" for a loan? How does this work, If I get approved for say 200k, is it okay if I buy something for 150k? If so what happens to the extra money I was approved for?

Nothing happens to that money at all, you just don’t take it. Getting pre-approved is a good idea. Some realtors and won’t sign a purchase & sale without it, others will and require proof before going any further.

 

[kastein]

I'm also looking to buy my first house... I want to find one that needs some work. I was messin around on the internet to try and see how much I could qualify for, they called me and told me they won't give more then the purchase price for the house.

So how do you go about buying a house for say 50K and wanting a loan for 75K so you can do some work?

Also, could I take out more to pay off 6.8% student loans when most house loans are 3-4%?

And finally say you take a 30 year or 15 year loan, is there typically a penalty to pay off early?

check the paperwork, there might be, there might not be. If you are trying to get a loan for more than the property value to do repairs you need to look into FHA loans. It's more paperwork and a lot more trouble but can be worth it I hear.

holy crap you can buy houses for 50k??? i need to move.

bought mine for 38k. Buy a house in beautiful Southbridge! 5min to Bradley's place, 30min to Sam's, 40min to Billy's, 45min to Bill's, an hour or so to Ross/Adam/Colin, and trails within an hour or two.

Avoid home owners associations.

All the advice I got.

Robert

100% agreed. HOAs are the devil.

Of course, I have project vehicles, don't like mowing my lawn, ham radio gear, and military vehicles, so I'm basically the guy they created HOAs to deal with :roflmao:

 

[whitexj98]

Yeah theres some pretty cheap houses around the Detroit Mi area....

 

[kastein]

I saw one sell for 750 there a while ago...

... not 750 thousand... 750...