Friday, July 8, 2011

Reading Up On Home Buying

I knew after the wedding that I would have a substantial amount of extra time on my hand.  Those DIY projects were a great way to kill time during the long engagement and I was afraid that I would go into wedding withdraw once I realized I had all of this extra time.

Chris is happy to see that there is no PWD (post wedding depression) here.  I have dived head first into reading anything and everything that I can on the home buying process.  There is so much out there to read up on, and I feel better about educating myself (and Chris) before we make this big purchase.  We've pulled our credit reports and scores and looked at ways that we can improve them (every point helps).  I will admit that I've looked on sites like realtors.com and trulia.com to see what type of houses are out there.  Creating a wish list of items we would like in our future house has been really easy, we were on the same page with so many features.  The main factors we are looking for are: 4 bedrooms, 2 or 2.5 baths, 2 stories, 2 car garage, nice sized kitchen, dining room, decent master suite with bathroom & walk in closet. 


This is our current favorite house via trulia, but doubt it will still be on the market when we purchase

We saved and spent a good amount of money on the wedding, which is good and bad.  It's bad because we are currently building our account back up.  It's good because it showed us that we have the ability to save for a big event, and taught us to budget pretty well. While on the road with Corinne (from Connecticut to Jersey), I started to think of ways that we could save faster.  After talking it over with Chris, we have decided to stop wasting money in rent after this lease is up and move in with my parents.  As much as I don't want to be one of those older twenty-somethings living at home (especially with my husband), looking at the savings was just too great.  If we continued to rent our apartment, our rent would go up and we would be locked in for another year, or 6 months or be raked over the coals if we did a month to month lease.  Moving in with my parents will allow us to save 3 to 4 times as much each month as we are now.

So while we save, I'll continue to read up and watch as many episodes of HGTV's House Hunters, My First Place & Property Virgins to gain any tips I can. 

How did you start your house hunting process?

4 comments:

  1. We did the same thing to start our process, moved in with my parents for a solid six months! I can't lie and say it wasn't stressful at times to go from having your own place, to living in a small room with people you haven't been used to in years, but it was SO WORTH IT. There is no way we could have saved so much so quickly and been able to buy when we did! Good luck, and do what I did, remind yourself when it gets tough how much your own kitchen and walk in closets will be worth it :)

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  2. Thanks Kate! That's one of the things that I worry about (the whole going back to living in a small room after being on my own for years), but like you said the savings should be so worth it!

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  3. Hi! I found your new blog from your wedding blog. I'm from FloMo, but getting married next week in DC. I just wanted to say, I think I know that neighborhood! Of course, most North Dallas suburb look the same. But that's a great location if you end up purchasing!

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  4. @Prettylittlemess - I think you may be right, most of the North Dallas suburbs look the same :) We are pretty set on that area for different reasons (close to friends, close to families, good school, not too far from where we live now) so I hope we find something great there early next year!

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