My First House

August 18th, 2009 I became a first time home owner. I was 23 at the time, had been living at home saving money for a few years and when the first time home buyer tax credit came out, I knew I had to go for it. I had an idea of where I wanted to live, so I started my search online. There are some really great real estate websites out there. I had three favorites that I bookmarked and checked frequently.

This one is probably my favorite. They seem to have all the features I like all in one place.

Next up, a local site that focuses on Grand Rapids, MI area real estate www.grar.com

Finally, www.zillow.com (very similar to trulia)

Another tool I couldn't do without was the street view function from google maps. I was able to pull up the addresses from google and "drive" down the street to get a feeling of the neighborhood. While a house might look decent online, using this search would allow me to see if the house next door looked like a meth lab or if there were run down apartments across the street. Bing maps has a great birds eye view feature on their map system that I also loved. That one allows you to see the backyards and an aerial view of the neighborhood. Using a combo of the two, I was able to really narrow down the list of houses I wanted to see in person. 

Next up, I found a realtor. I got a referral from my best friend Ashley, who used him when she and her husband bought a house a couple years prior. He was able to refer me to a good mortgage broker, and between the two of them, I had a great experience. 

Well...as great as dealing with a foreclosure can be I guess. Because in the end that's what I ended up choosing. We visited a total of four houses and I just got a good feeling about this one.

(this was actually taken after we put in new windows, but you get the idea)

I loved the friendly feeling of the neighborhood, the tree lined street, and the house was a complete dump, but had definite potential. It had no plumbing, a bathroom missing a ceiling and a long list of other problems, but my dad said we could handle it, so I put in an offer.

And a counter offer, and another counter offer. And finally the bank accepted. Getting my mortgage approved on the other hand was a whole other issue. Because of the ridiculous amount of problems with the house, the appraisal came in lower than the selling price of the house. I actually even had to scrape and paint the old wood siding, caulk the window glazing, and put up a drop ceiling in the half bath to get the mortgage approved at all. Even though we were planning to rip out all of that crap and replace it anyway! Long story short, I  wound up having to put more money on the down payment than I was planning, to drop the total I would need put on the mortgage. Because I was going to get the tax credit back, it all wound up being ok, but it was a huge pain in the rear and took a couple months to make it all happen. 

Moral of the story is foreclosures can be a great deal if you're willing to put up with a lot of red tape and aren't on a major time schedule. If it weren't for my mortgage broker and realtor helping me out I think I would have gone crazy. I would gladly recommend them if you're planning a move any time soon.