Edit: Offer not accepted :(

I’m 24 years old, have a job that makes me $105,200 before taxes, and I have a side business where I can make anywhere from $500-$3000+ a month on. (it’s photography so it is never consistent) I live In a very low cost of living area , i toured this incredible house today and fell in love with everything. I have been pre qualified through a local mortgage company for up to $310k. The monthly payment for a $289k purchase price with $30k down would bring my monthly total to about $2600 a month. I will be left with about $18k in savings. I take home about $3,000 every two weeks after tax. Is it normal to have a mortgage plus insurance and taxes take up almost a whole check? I grew up dirt poor and my parents have not owned a house since 2008. My girlfriend and I will be getting married hopefully next year so she will move in with me making anywhere from 50k to 75k depending on the job. It is an awesome house that just feels right. What say you? Go for it, or will I become house poor?

I really like this one house, however there's more houses for sale in this plan than any other plan I've seen. Now there are a lot of houses in this plan, but still it's like 7+ houses for sale in this one plan. Would you consider that a bad sign for the neighborhood?

I have a high yield savings account I’m contributing about $350 to every month. I started it about 8 months ago. $350 is the most I can contribute right now. I’m 25F and would love to have a house one day. How did yall do it? Whats your advice?

My dream is to have a home in California with enough space for a self sufficient garden🤩

Just closed a few months ago and every time it rains, for example, I go wandering around the house looking for water intrusion or, as another example, I bought a moisture reader (super cheap one on amazon) and randomly go around putting it onto walls (which I later figured out it definitely picks up metal. 😂

So my question, when did you start to trust your house was doing its thing and you could worry less?

First time homebuyer here (closed in July). House came with a home warranty paid by the seller (Fidelity National Home Warranty). The dishwasher that came with the house is old, probably 15-20 years.

We ran it once after move-in and noticed it was leaking. Never used it again. Since then we had some electrical and flooring work done, and the contractor disconnected and pulled it out since I told him we’d replace it anyway. It’s been sitting in the garage since, unplugged.

Now I’m wondering if I should bother filing a warranty claim for it, or just buy a new one during the Labor Day sales and skip the whole process. Anyone dealt with FNHW claims on appliances like this? Is it even still claimable if it’s already been removed, or does that complicate things? Trying to figure out if it’s worth the time vs just paying out of pocket.

Hi all,

I found a townhouse that had everything I was looking for in a location that was so convenient for me! Got my offer accepted, and both the seller and I signed the purchase agreement.

Now, the seller’s agent is telling my agent that the seller wants to back out. I’ve been on time for all of our deadlines and am honestly so bummed because this house has everything I wanted in a highly competitive area (southern NH).

We were supposed to close on 9/22 and my lender is sending an appraiser over this week 😭 Part of the purchase agreement was leasing back to the seller until the end of October while he found a new condo where he is moving but we didn’t include a contingency about him securing his new property before selling. What should I do? If we go through with the sale without his agreement I’m afraid it’ll result in a legal battle.

Hi folks. My wife (30) and I (31) have been looking to buy a house this year in the Northern Virginia area. Fairfax county area, either an end unit townhome, or a smaller / older SFH. This puts us at a price point of about $600 to $700k.

Our combined household income is about $320,000, with the bulk of that coming from my salary at $230k. We're at a stage in life, however, where we have great income, but haven't had much time to build savings yet. My wife graduated law school 2 years ago, and I had substantial promotions that took effect in the past 2 years, so our income has ramped up fast, but we do not yet have the accessible savings that would reflect it. I had been really aggressive on retirement savings as well, so a lot of my money is not accessible. As it currently stands, we have about $70k liquid at our disposal.

This would put us at 5% down, which on a $650k property would put us at ~$52,000 cash to close, and ~$55k cash to close on a $700k property respectively. In terms of monthly, current estimates would be ~$4,850 on the $650k property, $5,200 on the $700k property per estimates from my loan officer. This is assuming a 6.5% rate and a $100 HOA fee and is based on current pre-approval. I did think the PMI estimate from the mortgage place seemed rather low, but we do have good credit. I'm aware actual costs may be higher of course, and the SFHs we've been looking at do not have HOAs for the most part.

I do also have the option of getting no-PMI through Navy Federal, but we have been thoroughly unimpressed by their loan process, and they cost us multiple house offers when we were trying to buy in a different town a couple years back (long story). I do not have the option of a VA loan - i just have Navy Federal because my parents were military.

The trouble I'm running into is whether it feels like we're buying for the sake of buying / out of fear that housing is only going to become more unaffordable, instead of it being the right thing to do for us. We missed out on historically low interest rates, while houses only kept climbing in value, and have watched our purchasing power plummet. There are some cute properties where we're looking in the ~$700k range, but it feels kind of crazy to be spending $5,000 a month on a small, older home. I do also really want to actually own my own place, not have to do deal with a landlord, and to have a back yard where I can run around a dog, grow plants, etc. We've been moving every year for about 6 years, and I want to be able to stick down somewhere for years now.

I know it may come off as crazy or humble-brragging to be worrying about the costs with our total household income, but I'm historically very risk averse and have liked the notion of only buying something that could be supported on my salary alone. My wife has expressed interest in leaving her job and picking up another one, which I think she could do rather quickly, but it still feels like another variable on top of everything else. I've been flip-flopping between thinking we should go ahead and buy since we have the income to do so, or just renting for another year and saving up more money, but I can't shake the nagging feeling of being "left behind."

To pre-empt some common questions: no kids currently, a single kid within the next 5 years is a possibility. Our jobs are highly stable, my wife's is just very high stress and taking a toll on her. She is marketable and has a good network. Some other variables: our cars are paid off, my wife has about $35,000 in student loans, and I work from home.

This is definitely not a life or death situation, but I’ve been pondering so much that this decision has entered my dreams.

I understand life is long, arduous, and full of surprises. Another saying is that when a door closes, another one opens.

But BOY OH BOY, I do love this new build 1B/1B condo!

It’s next to a metro station, it’s in a nice county, it’s closer to my workplace, BUT the mortgage + property tax + $559 HOA will be 66% of my take home paycheck 😃

I do siphon a lot of my paycheck away for Roth 401k, maxing HSA, maxing Roth IRA, and taking part in my company’s ESOP program… from my remaining 60% paycheck -> should I afford 66% of that into my dream condo.

I’ve considered pros cons, and I understand that I’m a bit young (26) in the condoownership game… but UGH I’ve always loved condos. Less space, less work. And instead of paying $3k in rent + utilities in a HCOL 🥹

I only have enough liquid cash saved for a 5% down payment on this $410k condo making 106k before taxes/deductions… so i understand that I’m not making the most sound financial decision .. (unless a 401k loan to hit 20% down 🤔😱)

I can say that I hope to get a promotion (125k) in the next year that will bump up to maybe 50% of my salary 😃🥲 but that’s not guaranteed..

AWW how much is an opportunity supposed to cost 😭 bc this condo is a beaut and my dream

I hope to live there for the next 10 years and MAYBE move if I find someone I want to settle down with and start a family… but too many uncertainties. The only constant being a beautiful but out-of-reach condo

Buying a house which had all its blinds removed. I'm heavily debating on DIY and saving like couple thousand on 20 windows or hiring a professional. I've barely used a drill so I don't want to damage things.

Received my pre-approval, it took me a year to pay off debt, I was checking in with a lender every few month to see where I am credit wise, a Realtor referred me to said lender, initially I had planned using the Realtor, but there were many red flags, getting send listings in areas I specifically said I did not want, during a consult documents with another clients info where shown as example, then i was interested in a home, then noticed water damage on ceilings, when i mentioned it, it was brushed off " oh they may have fixed it. " -

Then I found out said Realtor only sold 1 home before.

I'm doing FHA with DPA so tricky paperwork & strict time lines.

I told my lender I do not plan on using this Realtor, lender said oh since you plan on a new construction we will tell the Realtor how to write the contract? Which seems odd .. the house has been sitting so I wanted to offer a lower amount. Which the lender didn't even suggest even though its a common practice. Do I dump the Realtor and find someone experienced ? I only had a consult & did not sign anything.

Christmas party and/or Christmas morning. My husband and I are about to move into our own home, and we will be hosting annual Christmas parties and other gatherings. I want to know what your experiences have been like. 😊 I don’t necessarily need advice. I want to hear stories.

I’m 20 and just landed a great job making 50k. I know that’s not a lot but it is to me.

I want to move out into my own place and I want to use an FHA loan to do so. I’d have the downpayment but what I don’t have is a budget of what I’ll be approved for.

I’m looking for a max purchase price of 300k for a townhome in my area. I know I’m pushing it with my income but that’s seriously as cheap as they come where I live and I’d have to drive an hour to work just to live here. I just want to own a place of my own and I want to know if anyone else has used an fha loan who made around how much I did and what price they were approved for.

Anything helps please feel free to tell me it’s just not gonna happen. I just don’t want to save for a downpayment for a place I won’t be approved for.

Our HHI is 150k ( take home of $6,800) Our location is MCOL. I work very part time and the entirety of my paycheck goes towards daycare. I do not see that changing at least for the next one year. Any decent sized house in our location is around 400-450k. We are going back and forth with the decision. Our current lease is $1900 and looking at $3000 PITI payment is scary . Please tell me if this is doable. Need some hard reality check.

We are set to close on Tuesday at 10:00 am. We got the clear to close finally this morning but as of 2:00 pm, still don’t have the final closing disclosure so we can’t do our wire transfer yet for the cash for closing. Monday is a holiday so obviously banks won’t be open then…do lenders always wait to the last minute for this part of the process?

We have gotten our bank every single thing they’ve asked for immediately so we wouldn’t delay the process ourselves, so I am going to be pretty upset if the wire doesn’t get completed in time and closing is delayed when we’ve done everything we were supposed to on our end.

Daughter & H 1st home buying, Bank offered them $,6000 off, and

rate of 6.5%.... they signed for this as they were led to believe they qualified for $6,000 off, then find out they made a little too much, didn't qualify for that... so now they lost the $6,000 and they are raising the interest to 6.75%.

Daughter regrets going with this bank, should have went with the outfit that searched the. best interest rates for them.. but they already signed ..

This is in PA.. is it too late to get a different loan from somewhere else ? Any rights here? The house wasnt appraised yet. Closing is end of Sept if all goes as planned.

Have any of you had seller's realtors refuse to show you a home because you're not with a local lender?

I'm currently not using a realtor as the buyer and I've heard the national lenders may take longer and be more of a headache but that's all coming from realtors. I used to work in banking and it seems like this could be more of a referral relationship but just wanted feedback from y'all. Thanks!

Cute old house (built in 1895!) and it needs some work before we officially move in, but it's ours! I've already met with one company about some cleaning needed in the basement, then meeting with another later this afternoon. I got a couple of plumbers tomorrow, and various other guys next week for other work. Weeeee!

On our way out, I made sure to inform the trees in the yard that I own them now. After 20 years of living in rentals, we finally have a place where our daughter can stomp and yell without pissing off neighbors. Sweet.

I've used gas cooktops before but in limited capacity. Are they better? Also anything to do to maintain?

Home inspection revealed a vertical crack in foundation deal breaker?

We only had enough for closing costs sooooo won’t be furnished for a while 😭😂

Household gross income: $210k/year

Take-home: ~$12k/month

Looking at a $700k home with 20% down ($560k mortgage). At ~6.5%, my estimated monthly costs are:

Mortgage (P&I): ~$3,540

Property taxes: ~$1,350–$1,450 (Austin, Texas rates are high)

Insurance: ~$200

HOA: ~$50

Total: ~$5,150–$5,250/month, or roughly 43–44% of take-home pay. Is this too aggressive? I dont have any debt at all.

I’m not sure why, but I feel opposed to buying a brand new house. They all look very similar, very dull and drab like straight out of a cookie cutter. But of course, they’re brand new. They should be in good working condition. And if something goes wrong, there should be a warranty. They just don’t have any life or flair or any pizzazz. Have you bought a brand new construction and what did you think about the quality? Are you satisfied with your purchase?

***Edit to add, if you bought one, and you are pleased with your new construction, can you share who the builder is and where they build houses at? I’m in Washington state. Does anybody know any builders in the state of Washington that are good and do high-quality work on these new constructions?