Know your market.
We moved to Clearwater, Florida from Huntsville, Alabama. We were initially looking at houses in Huntsville, thinking we were going to be there a few years. Yep.. we were wrong. But, Huntsville is a great place to live with a housing market that is great for a buyer.. and probably a seller too. So, we were a little, umm... shocked.. when we moved to Clearwater and saw the prices houses were going for.
We knew what we wanted and we really didn't want to give up much. We are willing to do some work.. and for the right price, maybe a full renovation. But, how were we going to pay for it?
We started at our bank. Everything seemed great until we started talking to family members about the possibility of some other options. For example, bundling closing costs or renovations. Our bank lender really didn't offer much help in this area so we went elsewhere. We found a great guy at a local mortgage company who explained things in depth with us. We had more options then we thought and that was a good thing!
We probably looked at close to 50 houses. I didn't think we were that picky but there were definitely things we each liked at one house and hated at the other. It wasn't easy. But, I'll get to that later.
If you're really set in one location, at least know what you can get outside of it. If we lived about 20 minutes North, we could get a lot more house for our money. But, is it worth it? For us, no it wasn't.
If you're specific about a location, know that you may wait a while. AND houses are going to go fast. So be prepared to act fast. Be critical but not overly critical.
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