Your First House in Wisconsin

[dgridley]

Assuming you're no longer living with mom and dad , did you rent or buy your first home? How was your first experience in buying or renting? Any tips you care to share?

[pk]

Assuming you're no longer living with mom and dad , did you rent or buy your first home? How was your first experience in buying or renting? Any tips you care to share?

Our first home we bought here in Wi was about 15 years ago. It took us almost a year to find what we wanted at the time.

Tips to share would be :

If you are serious about buying a house, get pre approved first for a loan. You will then know what you can afford and how much payments will be. Also it will make a bid/sale go through quicker.

Take your time and check the areas of which you want to buy a home in. Go past all different times of the day, evening and night to see how the neighborhood is. What can be quiet during the day can be totally different at night.

Buy a home that you can afford but if you can buy a house a bit bigger than you think you want you will be happy you did later as you accumulate items and or kids.

Never get a small house you think you can add on later. It usually never happens and then you are cramped in a too small house.

If you are handy try to get a house that needs some minor repairs and then work that into getting the price lowered. Look for foreclosed properties also.

But always, always, pay the extra for a HOME INSPECTION. It could save you a lot of money down the road in repairs you may not have noticed.

Check into the past records of the house and see how many times the home has been sold, how much, etc. Also check the prices of the houses around the neighborhood to see how they compare to the house you are thinking about.

If you do have repairs you would like to do such as putting on siding, a new roof, etc. get estimates before you purchase the home so you know what you are going to need for the repairs and if it is worth adding it all on the value of the house.

Don't buy after looking at the house only one time. Go back several times and bring a friend or relative that can be objective.

If you are seriously looking at a house, stop and ask a neighbor if you see one outside what he/she thinks of the area, any problems, etc? I remember one house we were interested and after talking to a neighbor that was outside we learned about a unit building down the road and how much trouble renters were in the past/present.

[CindyLouWho]

Great buyer tips Patti!

The first house we bought was in Elkhorn 18 years ago. We were renting an apartment in Dousman at the tiime and after buying the house we waited a month to move in because we painted the inside and replaced carpets, linoleum and appliances.

When we decided to move back closer to our families and put our house up for sale we sold it ourselves. I was a stay at home mom so I was there to show the house to prospective buyers and it sold in less than two weeks. If you sell your home and can do it yourself, I highly recommend it. We hired a lawyer to do the paper work and it only cost $500 compared to thousands a realtor would have gotten.

[Blue Baboon]

We've only lived in one house that we owned and that we built. After looking at 17 houses that were never quite right for us, we decided to build. We found out it was cheaper to build new than to buy a house that still needed work.

So many of these home owners didn't repair things before selling and they expected top dollar. I think some of them were dreaming. One house the carpeting was so icky that I didn't even want to walk on it with shoes. Another house had a hole punched in the closet door because the owner had a fight with his soon to be ex-wife. Another house smelled like cat pee. Other things that we didn't like were small kitchens or bedrooms, outdated counter tops or bathrooms that had those awful '70s colors. Some houses only had a one car garage or a detached garage. The realtor acted like we were too picky, but I'm the one that has to live with the house, not them. Geez, all we asked for was a ranch house with 2 car attached garage that was less than 30 years old. I didn't want to inherit someone else's junky house so we built our own.

There was only one house that I thought was worth the money being asked, but it was just a little out of our price range. It had a view of the river and it was 2 story, but there was 2 kitchens, 2 livingrooms, 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. It sounds really big, but both kitchens and livingrooms were small by themselves. I think it would have been perfect for entertaining or having guests on one level and you on the other level. The house was well cared for. Only thing it didn't have was a basement, but just a crawl space. With the house being the size it was, it didn't seem like storage would be an issue. I'd still like to have that house.

[Kens Digital Media]

When I first flew out the nest I bought a mobile home. Great location, two car driveway with at least 55' feet front lawn, larger back yard too. Then saved up and bought a house, three car garage ( guy thing ). Oh, it had a bar in the basement too.

pk has some great tips.
I'll add a tip. You can and should negotiate costs like inspection costs etc. If your pre-approved and depending on the market most sellers will help cover almost any cost, even pay the down payment for you if you BUY