The listing should tell you what type (FHA, VA, Conv) of financing the seller will accept and I would check that before looking at a property.

If the two properties were listed as the sellers accepting FHA and VA, but they didn't...shame on them.

I looked at it, both the bathroom vanities and the kitchen/dining area lights, as something I would want to change. The island lights are metal while the dining area lights are frosted glass.

During my eleven page read, I came across microwave vent hood issues, but wasn't sure what people meant. Is this where the microwave is over the cooktop and the venting of the cooktop isn't as good or does the microwave need to be vented too? If it is the former and someone has enough kitchen space, would people suggest moving the microwave and putting a bigger vent hood if the vent hood would still be the filter and recirculating type?

My apologies for three straight posts. I was on my Nook and it can be somewhat balky at times when posting and is usually easier to do different posts than multi-quoting.

I'd be more consistent with a bathroom being internally consistent than matching either other bathrooms or the whole house. Different rooms can have different styles. But, for instance, I'd be concerned if the lightning was a weird bad match for the style of the cabinets or something like that.

Someone applied to buy my place with a VA loan. There were some extra appraisal steps and requirements for things like safety rails (even though the vet in question had no need of such things) that would have been a pain. Similarly, some buildings don't allow fha loans as they are seen as negatives to other mortgage lenders.

Doc T, recirculating vents are hot garbage. Venting microwaves are better than nothing but barely. You don't need to vent a microwave it would just be passing through the range exhaust.

Get a suitably powerful exhaust hood vent of a proper size for your range, it makes a huge difference if you do any real cooking.

How expensive would it be to do proper venting if the other side of the wall from where the stove is located is another room?

Duct is cheap but you need space (attic, soffit, joist bay) to chase the duct to an exterior wall or roof and if you don't have that you may be out of luck.

Thanks to a twice yearly tour of new homes put on by the area builders, I've seen a lot of half a million dollar and up homes. The one thing the best ones had in common was sticking to the theme of the house. While not all the bathrooms were exactly the same, they were in the same family. The bathrooms in this house aren't even distant cousins but then again it isn't a half a million dollar home.

Having said that, this house is the one the wife and I chose. It has the space we wanted at a price we can afford. We do the inspection Monday, the appraisal Wednesday, and if those go well, we should close on the 20th of February.

It is three bedrooms and two baths plus a laundry on the main level. Across the mud room from the laundry is a walk in pantry. The laundry is so big we are thinking about taking some space and creating a half bath.

I will get that checked out as one of our life goals is to learn how to cook well. Knowing a celebrity chef, and getting a nice kitchen, has a tendency to do that to someone. The serving side of the kitchen island can probably fit four, if not five, people.

The dining room portion of the kitchen is about 11x14.

I'm convinced that one of the biggest keys to good cooking is heat control, and most home cooks either aren't capable of it because of equipment, or are afraid of it. I've never had a house with a gas range, but it's on my wish list. When shopping for houses before my last purchase, it was on my "must" list, but everything in life is a compromise.

The house has a new electric stove/oven. Due to having young grandchildren, if we changed it, we'd probably go induction.

The only large kitchen appliance we need to buy is a fridge and we're going to go with a side by side as things in the freezer can be better organized.

Sorry for monopolizing this thread but I think those who remember the excitement of buying their first house will forgive me.

Here are some things I think I should pass on to anyone starting on, or thinking about, searching for a home to buy.

If you are part of a couple, both sides need to be heard. ESPECIALLY if you are the dominant voice. I was the more dominant one when it came to house hunting and I almost got us into a house that was way more me. That led to some tense times between us.

Be prepared to see a lot of houses. Again, ESPECIALLY if you are part of a couple.

Have a good agent you trust who will listen to you and find a happy medium if you are part of a couple. We have such an agent, but I was pretty hard headed. Don't you be hard headed.

Be prepared for disappointment. You may think you have made a very good offer, but until you have the keys the house isn't yours. We thought we had a house and were dreaming about how we would fix it, but the seller rejected our two offers. Due to our budget including renovations and giving the seller his price meant we would exceed it, we didn't make a third. This sent the wife into a funk where she revealed the house wasn't that much her. Yes, I know we may be setting ourselves up for disappointment again. Experiencing disappointment leads me to my next suggestion.

If you lose out on a house, take some time off if you can. The wife and I didn't do that and before we saw the next house, she asked me if I liked it if I was prepared for us to make an offer. I stupidly said yes so when I said I liked it, BUT we wouldn't be making an offer, she was upset. You can also say you won't be making an offer on the next house without thinking about it even if you like it.

Stick to your budget and take into consideration all the renovations you may want to do.

Just because you are approved for a certain amount doesn't mean you need to buy a house of that price. Personally, I think the amount you are approved for MINUS any down payment equals the price of the house rather than the amount you are approved for PLUS your down payment equals the priced of the house.

That is all about I have for now on that subject and now I want to talk about a house I saw during our search.

It was a ranch with a three car garage and the third bay's pad outside looked like it had settled lower than the other bays, but it was lower by design. During our tour of the house, I looked into the garage and I saw a two bay garage with a wall and a door between that and the third garage bay. The seller was a Corvette lover and in the two car garage was an SUV and a Corvette of some undetermined vintage. I thought I would see a large vehicle that required more headroom thus accounting for the lower pad so I walked over to the door, opened it, and I was like "Holy Crap!"

Any recommendations for home owner's insurance in terms of company and limits?

I'm thinking about going with Nationwide so if I ever suffer a loss, I'll have a pretty girl swinging through the place making it right.

Who has your car insurance? You can usually get discounts for combos.

I know that and should have said I am probably changing my insurance agent so I really need a recommendation for both house AND car.

The inspection was today and it was disappointing.

The three biggest things are the poor job done in the installation of the siding, the poor installation of the basement sliding door, and the lack of sufficient heating downstairs. But there were a lot more problems.

For us not to reduce our offer, we are going to ask the seller to fix a LOT of things. If he doesn't agree, there is no point in doing the appraisal so that is on hold.

We were also distressed that we had a signed contract and had given the agent for the seller an earnest money deposit, but the listing never changed from active and an agent showed up with clients for a showing while we were doing the inspection.

That sucks. Ask for absolutely everything you want to be fixed to be taken care of and reinspected and be prepared to walk.

That sucks Doc.

The fiance and I have been hunting open houses the past couple weeks, and she has been blowing up my email with her zillow searches.

We did a 2nd tour (with our Realtor this time) of a house we really liked, and upon 2nd viewing, we really saw all the small things that we would need to fix , plus a few large things that the owner will need to fix. I'm going to offer 5% less than they are asking, bit may drop the offer price a little more. The fiance is already giving me a list of things she wants (me) to do.

In my experience this is standard until contingencies have been removed.

When our offer was accepted, the listing agent said the combination would be changed and there would be no more showings.

Also, at the time of acceptance we had given them a list of small things that needed to be fixed and none had been done yet.

We are meeting with our agent tonight and if we can't hash out a mutually acceptable deal with the other side, our agent and I will be looking at more houses this weekend. The wife has to work, but she said she is fine with that.

We just purchased 12 wooded acres. We are going to build a new home in the spring. My main concern is selling our current house. It's an Older house, paid 100k, put 25k into it. Lived there for 11 years, and always maintained it. Looks great from the outside, new siding, windows, cultured stone on the bottom, inside has all been completely redone, new stone fireplace surround, every room but the kitchen. Needs a new roof in 5 years or so. Never leaked, but has lost some shingles , like 3 which I need to replace after 12 inches of snow melts off and it's 70 degrees outside.

House right next to mine just went up for sale, like 2 days ago, she's moving across the state. I just want to end up with at least 100k after realtor fees, and whatever the home inspector is wrong with it. Realtor said list for 129k, I want to list for 117k and take the first reasonable offer. Our neighborhood has around 80 houses in it, 4 streets combined. Houses seem to take forever to sell around here. The only plus, is our house is the nicest 1 or 2 out of the 80 houses around here. Crappy layout inside, small kitchen, small bathrooms, but that's how houses were built 50 years ago or so. It does have a huge 2 1/2 car garage with upstairs for storage.

I told my wife if after 8 months, we can't sell, rent it out. Does this seem logical?

My house is paid off, mortgage free, debt free, no cc debt, but car payment for 23 more months @ .9 %

Father in law and I putting in 800 Sq ft of hardwood in coming up soon. Luckily, he's got about 20 yards experience doing it. Got a good deal on the floors + free labor.

You had me at hello.....until you mentioned twelve inches of snow.

Selling @ 20k Loss = Living @ 234 a month including taxes roughly. for 11 years. not bad if you look at it like this.

I should post on "over thinking" thread more.

I think people who say "If we can't get $X for selling the house, we'll just rent it out" will almost universally be better off by selling for less than $X, rather than renting.

As discussed previously ITT your purchase price plus money spent has very little bearing on the current worth of the property. You need to do a comparables analysis which is presumably what your realtor did when recommending the 129k price.

So by pricing it aggressively at 117k you may sell faster but you may also leave 10k on the table if that kind of thing is important to you.