When did you know you were ready to buy a house?

Financially.. not emotionally lol.

Did you have your downpayment fully saved or did you go looking and just hope for the best? DH and I are married almost 4 months and were thinking of starting to look about a 1 1/2 after we're married. I'm not in a rush rush but I do see houses on MLSLI that seem perfect (price, location, taxes, rooms etc) and it gets me anxious.

I do love where we're renting now but I was curious. Did you and your SO agree to have a certain amount in savings in addition to the DP prior to looking?

Re: When did you know you were ready to buy a house?

We saved while we were looking-basically hoped for the best!

Re: When did you know you were ready to buy a house?

We didn't really have a choice. We couldn't rent with our cats, but we couldn't live in one room in my parents' house forever.

You know that saying "It's not what you know, it's who you know?" Well, it applied for us in this scenario. We know a few people involved in the "industry" and that really helped us. We had enough saved for a down payment; however, our down payment was ridiculously small...MAYBE 5 percent?

ETA: If you want the name of our Realtor, FM me.

Message edited 1/6/2011 3:09:56 PM.

Re: When did you know you were ready to buy a house?

We got lots of monetary gifts from our wedding. If we didnt get that then probably would have had to save for another 3 years....

Re: When did you know you were ready to buy a house?

DH & I have recently decided that we will more then likely be moving upstate, NY. Since the cost of living is so much less there we are currently looking for a piece of land. DHs plan is to build our dream home. We are currently looking at homes that are for sale for ideas of what we like & don't like.

My parents did the same thing not too long ago. About 15 years ago my dad purchased a piece of land & has been building a home over the last 10 years. It is my parents dream home. They plan on moving there in a couple of years once they fully retire.

We do not plan on taking as long as we went this home as our primary residence. Of course this also depends on DHs employment situation, as he is currently unemployeed.

Re: When did you know you were ready to buy a house?

We waited until we had our down payment saved. We had an amount we were comfortable with (based off of the size house we wanted minus the size mortgage we could afford) & stuck to it.

Re: When did you know you were ready to buy a house?

I was emotionally ready to buy a house about 2 yrs b/f we actually did. We just didnt have the money. We got some very generous gifts for our E party and had $ saved so we used that. We were in contract b/f out wedding and final closed 2 months after the wedding!

Re: When did you know you were ready to buy a house?

we had saved enough for the downpayment and we were sick of living in an apartment. i think we started looking after about a year or two of marraige.

Re: When did you know you were ready to buy a house?

We had saved "enough" we felt, and began just looking casually because the market was starting to come down at that time.

Sure enough, we found our house in less than a month - but it was priced to sell fast so we were able to make it happen and be comfortable financially.

Re: When did you know you were ready to buy a house?

We had 20% saved PLUS over a year of expenses in savings. The 8K tax credit also lured us in.