questions about purchasing a house....

[vi edit]

First off, does anybody have some decent sites to help educate me on some things to look for/at when house shopping.

Second, are house prices negotiable. For instance, I'm looking at something along these lines: House...

Is that price set in stone, or is it sort of like a car dealership and you can dicker around with them?

I really know jack sh!t about purchasing a house, so links to first time buyer advice would be very helpful.

Also, any advice you may have feel free to leave Thanks!

 

[Russ]

<< Is that price set in stone, or is it sort of like a car dealership and you can dicker around with them? >>



Depends. In a hot market, with a home that hasn't been on the market long, it'll be pretty difficult to get the seller down. In a slow market, and a home that's been listed for a while, you have far more negotiating room.

Check four things. How long has it been up for sale? What do the comps look like; in other words, what are similar surrounding homes selling for? What is the tax assessment. And, finally, how motivated is the seller? For example, if they're moving to another state because of career, they'll be a lot more motivated than if it's just a &quot;trade-up&quot; sale.

Bottom line is: NEVER make a full price offer right out of the gate unless you know it's a hot property and you REALLY want it. The one advantage to a full price offer, though, is that if you qualify financially, most states require that seller accept.

It also helps if you are &quot;pre-qualified&quot;. The seller will take your offer more seriously than an offer from someone who is not.

Russ, NCNE

 

[~zonker~]

Depends on the market. Here in Caifornia people are literally having bidding wars over decent homes and selling much higher than the initial asking price.

In CR, I imagine you could offer as much as 10% less than the asking price and stand a decent chance. One thing to do is to guage how motivated the seller is. Did they just have a divorce? Do they have to move because they have a job somewhere else? You know what I'm saying.

Both houses I have purchased had very motivated sellers...

 

[vi edit]

Hmmm...thanks for the info and quick responses.

I'm sort of in a funny situation though. The town that I rent in now is also the same town that we are looking for a house. The town we're in is pretty much halfway between both my job in Cedar Rapids and my girlfriends job/classes in Iowa City. It's a small, friendly community and we really don't have a huge desire to move out of it.

The wierd thing about the town is that houses are either new, or old. There really isn't much in between. On one side of the highway is &quot;old&quot; part of town. The houses over there range anywhere from a 100+ years old to around 30-40 years old.


On the side of the highway that we live on, the residents live in < 5 year old houses or a couple year old condo's.

The houses that caught our eye were &quot;spec&quot; houses built for the sole purpose of being sold. Most of the houses around here are not built by &quot;individuals&quot; but rather by a contracting company for a real estate company or some other company of that sort.

The houses that we are looking at are pretty much the same as the next 10 houses down the road. THey all are built off of the same floor plans by the contracter/companies that originally subdivided area.

It's sort of tough to judge what the other houses in the area are going for when you see 6 of the exact same house on the same block as you listed at the same price.

As far as the sellers motivation, I have yet to check into that. I do know that the area we are in (North Liberty) is one of the fastest growing in the county. That will probably work against us.

Once again, thanks for the help thus far. Hopefully the information in the post will help guide a couple more responses.

 

[Russ]

BTW, the house you linked would sell for about 250K in my area.

Russ, NCNE

 

[BoberFett]

vi_edit

If it's a spec home (new build I'm assuming from that link you posted), you'll simply pay list price. There's not a whole lot of haggling to be done with the builder. If it's not a new build then it's like buying any house. The seller asks a price, you make an offer. You deal back and forth until you have reached an agreement. If you're pre-qualified, you'll have an advantage going in because you know exactly what your limit is. In that case, you can try to get a lower price for the house you want, and the only way you can miss out is if the seller absolutely won't drop to your ceiling.

However, don't expect to do much dealing. Right now it's definitely a sellers market. I'll probably be putting my home up for sale in the near future, and while I haven't had it appraised yet I know that similar homes in my area are selling for nearly 20% more than I paid for mine 2.5 years ago.

 

[Bryan]

Good lord, vi_edit... I hope you're not still in Iowa... You'll get a tall but narrow 50 year old house with a plot of land as big as my kitchen, all for prices three times higher than they should be. What part of Iowa are you buying in? Wasn't it somewhere near Waterloo?

 

[vi edit]

Thanks for the help Bober and Russ.

Bober, the house is indeed a &quot;new&quot; house. I was pretty certain before I made the post that I wouldn't really have the ability to negotiate a deal. With as many of the same houses going up in the area, I figure that it was pretty much non-negotiable. No harm in asking though

Oh, and Russ, where I moved from(Dubuque, IA), the house I listed would probably go for about 115k-125k. It's amazing how much markets fluctuate!

I really want to follow through with this. The lease on our condo goes up in May, and I really want to start saving up so that I can put somewhere between 10%-15% down on it. I just can't bring myself to pay $610 a month for a three room condo, when I can be paying another $400 for an entire house that will eventually be mine.

We don't plan on staying in this area for more than 10 years, and hope to have the house paid off in less than 8. With the way this area is growing, I'm certain that if we keep good care of the house, we can make a decent profit off of it.

I really want to hop on the boat before it starts to float away...meaning the prices catch up to the market.

 

[vi edit]

Bryan, actually it's North Liberty. About halfway between CR and Iowa City.

All things considered, the prices don't look toooo bad. If this was in Peoria, Illinois it would probably be near 175k.