When I logged on today I was amazed that I have not yet written a blog posting this month! There goes my goal at the beginning of the year to write at least one posting a week. So my apologies, but part of the reason I have been absent is that my husband and I have been in the process of selling our condo and attempting to buy a home.
Hence the title buying a house is like going to the dentist. Actually, I think it may be worse than going to the dentist. But through this process I have come up with a few nuggets of what I hope to be useful information that I want to pass along. As you know, I am a budget freak. Through my work as an attorney practicing bankruptcy law at Halcomb Singler, LLP, I see on a daily basis how a few crazy turns of life can leave people with huge financial difficulty. So, when we set out on a search to buy a house I, of course, had set a strict budget and paramaters of the type of house we would set out to buy.
First thing was we did not want a giant house. Unless you have a very large, even multi-generational family I am not sure why people buy 5.000 square foot houses. When I see a 5,000 square foot house I see several things. There are the many rooms to furnish, clean, and heat or cool. There are the significant property taxes and there is the fact that you may need to send out a search party for your loved one because you can't see or hear them in the vast spread of rooms that is a 5,000 square foot house.
Next, we wanted a house that was not in a production "cookie cutter" neighborhood that have been so popular of late in Fishers, where we live now. We wanted a lot that was big enough where you could go out on your back patio without staring at your neighbor drinking his or her morning coffee in their kitchen 15 feet away. In fact, our goal was to find a home with at least an acre of land.
Our next criteria would be a home that could use a bit of updating over time in an area where it was not the nicest house. The goal in that is that if we put some money into the house over the course of living there that the neighborhood would support return on our investment.
And the most important part was that we not buy a house at the top end of our budget. In fact, the house that we are currently negotiating is about $65,000 less than the top of our budget. I think it is important to buy less house than you can afford. Over time this will allow you to maintain it properly, furnish and decorate it the way that you would like and to hopefully have some money left over to go on a vacation once in a while.
So, the last component of buying a house that is below that which you can afford is fairly difficult. I think when most people start shopping around for houses they think to themselves, "this is what I can get for my money?!?" And this phrase is normally uttered as people are looking over wood paneling, wallpaper and oak cabinets. So the typical person is going to say to themselves that they had better increase their budget. But think twice before you blindly start increasing your budget. In my house-hunting experience in the Hamilton County Indiana area the more expensive the house, the bigger the house, but not necessarily the nicer the house. So pick your house based on location in an area you would like to stay for the long haul.
So, this is my two cents on house-hunting. Anyone else have any tips for buying a house while staying within a budget? I'd like to hear them, because I am a bankruptcy attorney and not a realtor so I certainly have more to learn in this area!
Halcomb Singler, LLP, is a debt relief agency. It helps people file for bankruptcy under the bankruptcy code. No attorney-client relationship with the firm of Halcomb Singler, LLP, is created through this blog. Also, please note that Erika Singler is an attorney licensed in Indiana and does not seek to practice law in any jurisdiction in which they are not properly authorized to do so. The information contained in this blog is general in nature and should not be relied upon for the circumstances of any individual(s) or businesses.
