[NA] Don't House Hunt Until You're Ready to Buy

OkieFlyer

OkieFlyer

En-Route
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May 16, 2011
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3,225
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Lindsay, OK
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Andrew L.
Just sayin'. You're setting yourself up for disappointment if you do.

The wife and I bought a little cracker box starter home a decade ago, when we were poor newlyweds. Ten years and three kids later, we're mentally ready to get the heck out of here, but the house is not ready for sale. Still need to redo the roof, some trim work, paint, and a few other things before it's ready for market. But, we've been casually perusing the real estate web sites and keeping our eyes open to see what's out there. Well, lo and behold, we mess around and fall in love with a home that recently came on the market. It's exactly what we've imagined that we want in our future home. Guess what, can't buy it yet. Gotta sell the current house first, and it's probably a couple months away from being ready, and will take pretty much all of our available cash to get it there. Bridge loans are too risky for my taste, not enough in the 401K to borrow, and I don't have any rich relatives to borrow from. So we've fallen in love with something we can't have. That's life, but I've learned that I should probably just keep my eyes closed until I have money in hand. Unfortunately, here in rural America, not many "perfect" places come up for sale. Probably gonna miss the boat in this one. Poop!
 
There will be another house when you are ready. Don't fret losing this one.

Get your stuff in order, fix the old house, get it sold, and go shopping from a position of strength. You will be much better off.
 
Markets differ all over the world, but in Denver back in 2016 you better not start looking without an earnest money check in your hand and the ability to make a decision within 15 minutes.

We put our house on the market. Had two sight unseen offers before a first showing. Had a contract on it at the end of that first day after a four way bidding war. Fast forward about 40 days before the buyer's financing fell through. Once again on the end of the first day we had another offer, and it was a cash offer.

From that and some co-workers experiences more recently in Denver, if you even want a shot at a home you have to make an instant offer.
 
It's hard to find dream homes (especially if what you want is less common). Have you considered building?

Last year when we were searching for this house (we moved here and had a relocation package) it took quite a lot of work. We looked at probably a couple dozen homes in person, with probably another couple hundred or more online. We realized that for what we wanted (hard to find) especially in our price range, we weren't going to be able to find what we wanted without some work. We found one house/property we liked, made a fair offer, didn't go through. The house we ended up buying was better overall, still required a lot of work to make how we wanted (mostly kitchen). If we hadn't found the house we bought, we probably would've built.
 
JoseCuervo said:
There will be another house when you are ready. Don't fret losing this one.

Get your stuff in order, fix the old house, get it sold, and go shopping from a position of strength. You will be much better off.
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Right on. That's what we will do. We just inadvertently got caught up in this other home. In this case, there is some emotion involved. It is next door to where I grew up out in the country, and belonged to an old couple that were close friends of the family. I just got to thinking how nice it would be to have my boys grow up pretty much exactly where I grew up, playing in the same woods, and fishing the same ponds. One of those deals. Just disappointed we're not in a good position to make an offer, but will probably only miss the opportunity by a couple months. But who knows, it may still be on the market when we're ready, but I doubt it.

Ted DuPuis said:
It's hard to find dream homes (especially if what you want is less common). Have you considered building?

Last year when we were searching for this house (we moved here and had a relocation package) it took quite a lot of work. We looked at probably a couple dozen homes in person, with probably another couple hundred or more online. We realized that for what we wanted (hard to find) especially in our price range, we weren't going to be able to find what we wanted without some work. We found one house/property we liked, made a fair offer, didn't go through. The house we ended up buying was better overall, still required a lot of work to make how we wanted (mostly kitchen). If we hadn't found the house we bought, we probably would've built.
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We have considered building, and if we can't find what we're looking for when the time comes, we may well do that. We'll see what transpires.

FORANE said:
Make an offer on the house contingent upon the sale of yours.
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You can only do that if you're house is on the market. As mentioned, my house is not ready for the market. Too much work to be done, not enough time to get it done quickly, and I refuse to pay someone 3 times what I can do it for. I'll do the work myself, and be patient.



Here in rural OK, homes don't typically move very quickly, so hopefully it will sit on the market for a bit, while we prepare. The flip side is, our house may also sit on the market for a while too, so we may be screwed either way. However, I would be willing to sell mine on the cheap side just to get a deal done.

We could afford to go ahead and put a minimal down payment on the future house. Of course if we did, we'd have to pay PMI until our current one sold, and the loan terms wouldn't be as ideal as they would if we showed up with our home already sold and had $50K in hand. The other problem is we would be paying two mortgages until we sold the current home. In this market, that may be six months, and I don't think we could swing two mortgages for that long. So, we wait.
 
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Been on the hunt as well for awhile now. Not easy to find something that suits the needs. A lot of crap out there. Best of luck to you buddy!
 
Or.... Insure house heavily.

Take up smoking....

Store oil soaked rags in basement, or garage.....

disclaimer: Suggest you seriously not take any advice here as good advice....:lol:
 
Zeldman said:
Or.... Insure house heavily.

Take up smoking....

Store oil soaked rags in basement, or garage.....

disclaimer: Suggest you seriously not take any advice here as good advice....:lol:
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Well, I don't have a garage or basement, so I can't think of any other place for my oily rags besides in the house, next to the hot water heater, and in the closet, next to the breaker box. I like to drape them over the furnace so they'll dry quicker.
 
FORANE said:
Make an offer on the house contingent upon the sale of yours.
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This.

List your house as it stands and make a contingent offer and see if you can get enough out of your house as is...nothing to loose if you can't sell. You probably won't get back financially in increased sales price what you are going to put into it for rehab anyway.
 
OkieFlyer said:
You can only do that if you're house is on the market. As mentioned, my house is not ready for the market. Too much work to be done, not enough time to get it done quickly, and I refuse to pay someone 3 times what I can do it for. I'll do the work myself, and be patient
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There is no such thing as a house that is not ready to be on the market. So you mentioned that: "Still need to redo the roof, some trim work, paint, and a few other things before it's ready for market."

You will NOT be able to get the money you put in for that. Even if you were to do it yourself and you count the value of your time anywhere more than minimum wage.

Especially trim & paint work. It may look bad to you now, but fixing that is worth exactly 0 to a buyer. Fixing the roof will raise the value, but not by more than the raw material cost.

Unless you have the raw materials sitting on the property already and you can't return it anymore, it's not worth it. Just sell it.
 
Or....If you have enough for a down payment on the new house, keep your existing house as a rental.
 
We are looking but not ready to buy... I can look at realtor ads all day long if I wanted.. I have bookmarked GIS/map applications, looking at the plats, the floodplain, pipelines, easements, the neighbors.. Found several that would be "the house" at various times while I'm learning the local market and valuation.

Wifey... she cant do that. She starts looking at something she likes and she starts getting attached and wanting to move on it (when we cant just yet).. So... I cant take her driving or show her the stuff I'm finding, other than to get her ideas on what she likes or dislikes.. if "the house" shows up in my searching, all hell breaks loose on her end :rolleyes:o_O
 
Some really terrible advice in here. Paint is the best bang for your buck improvement you can make and lenders wont loan on a house with a bad roof. In most markets homes are getting offers in days not weeks if priced aggressively, so paint it, fix the roof, and sell it. Or sell at 70% of Market value to a wholesaler like me for cash if you want out fast.
 
We are in the process of selling a house the wife owned prior to our being married. Needed a ton of work to get it updated/ready for market. I painted the entire exterior and most of the interior, replaced rotten trim/siding where needed, had a garage wall pierced, replaced a cracked window, etc. and got it on the market. We had a cash offer within the first few days on the market, but it fell through due to the roof being shot (didn't leak, just old). Second cash offer came, they bailed after concerns of roof and such as well. We filed a claim on insurance and managed to get it replaced at the cost of our deductible. House got a 3rd (and 4th) offer immediately and should close on Tuesday if all goes well. It's been a huge PITA and time suck to get it fixed and ready over the past 6 months, but I have no doubt that without my improvements and the roof/piering this house wouldn't have had nearly the market interest and we'd be lucky to sell at payoff, if that.


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Wade said:
Some really terrible advice in here. Paint is the best bang for your buck improvement you can make and lenders wont loan on a house with a bad roof. In most markets homes are getting offers in days not weeks if priced aggressively, so paint it, fix the roof, and sell it. Or sell at 70% of Market value to a wholesaler like me for cash if you want out fast.
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I'm with you on this. However, in a little oilfield town, when oil is down, stuff doesn't sell very fast.

SoonerAviator said:
We are in the process of selling a house the wife owned prior to our being married. Needed a ton of work to get it updated/ready for market. I painted the entire exterior and most of the interior, replaced rotten trim/siding where needed, had a garage wall pierced, replaced a cracked window, etc. and got it on the market. We had a cash offer within the first few days on the market, but it fell through due to the roof being shot (didn't leak, just old). Second cash offer came, they bailed after concerns of roof and such as well. We filed a claim on insurance and managed to get it replaced at the cost of our deductible. House got a 3rd (and 4th) offer immediately and should close on Tuesday if all goes well. It's been a huge PITA and time suck to get it fixed and ready over the past 6 months, but I have no doubt that without my improvements and the roof/piering this house wouldn't have had nearly the market interest and we'd be lucky to sell at payoff, if that.


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I hear ya man. My plan was to just go ahead and do what needs to be done before we list it. Chances are, I'll have to do them anyway, and I'd rather not drag it out. Our roof is too old to even file a claim. We tried. Some soffit and fascia is in bad shape and needs replacing, and it all needs paint. It's a brick home, so I only need to paint soffit, fascia, and one gable end. No biggie, just takes a little money and some time. Other than the roof, there's nothing major that needs to be done, but there is a decent list of items that will take some time to complete. We'll get there eventually.
 
Market is really strong, here, right now. Next door neighbor put their house on the market, at much higher price than they expect it to sell for, just to get a feel, and the realtor had 8 interested parties the first day. Scared the hell out of the neighbors because they didn't expect that, and have no place to move to, so they took it off the market and didn't show it to anyone... yet.
 
OkieFlyer said:
I hear ya man. My plan was to just go ahead and do what needs to be done before we list it. Chances are, I'll have to do them anyway, and I'd rather not drag it out. Our roof is too old to even file a claim. We tried. Some soffit and fascia is in bad shape and needs replacing, and it all needs paint. It's a brick home, so I only need to paint soffit, fascia, and one gable end. No biggie, just takes a little money and some time. Other than the roof, there's nothing major that needs to be done, but there is a decent list of items that will take some time to complete. We'll get there eventually.
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Yeah, unfortunately the wife didn't have the funds to make a lot of the repairs at the time, and I had purchased a larger home from a foreclosure that needed plenty of attention. So, I spent just about every weekend and several weeknights from March-June just making repairs and such. Not to mention having to go over once a week to mow/maintain the property. I'm ready to be done with it, despite the home now being in great shape. I would have considered renting it out, however, the area it's in won't likely allow the house to go up in value so I passed on that idea.
 
FORANE said:
Make an offer on the house contingent upon the sale of yours.
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And only do what HAS to be done on your old house, price it accordingly. If you take a couple grand less for the old one and still get the new one, it's a win. Just like airplanes, figure out the market on yours and sell it, don't play the I'm going to spend $10K on it to get top dollar game, you may or may not get top dollar and you'll miss the other house trying and waiting! Move now and keep momma happy!
 
N747JB said:
And only do what HAS to be done on your old house, price it accordingly. If you take a couple grand less for the old one and still get the new one, it's a win. Just like airplanes, figure out the market on yours and sell it, don't play the I'm going to spend $10K on it to get top dollar game, you may or may not get top dollar and you'll miss the other house trying and waiting! Move now and keep momma happy!
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You bet. The things I'm going to do need to be done. As mentioned, the roof would probably cause issues with a lender, some things won't pass inspection, and some things are for curb appeal. Not going all out on curb appeal, but paint is cheap, and makes a huge difference to many potential buyers. In this market, the curb appeal isn't about dollars, it's about getting it sold. Bland houses won't move here, period. You have to stand out a little to get some interest. I don't need top dollar, but I need to get something reasonable.

There are four cookie cutter houses on my block for sale. My neighbors own the nicest of the 4, and have it reasonably priced. 3 lookers in six months.
 
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