Any advice on buying/Selling a house

[elish2]

Ok back story:
I am currently living in a house that is 936 sq feet with 3 bedrooms and a full basement. It is me, my husband and two daughters, my husband's sister is staying here too and occasionally my husband's uncle. The city I live in, I cannot stand very much. Pretty much, if you are here they tell you don't stay in the North, South, Central, or East side because they are not very nice places to be....so only the West side is ok. There is always someone getting shot or stabbed everyday it seems like. So guess what, I want to move.

I want  to move back to my home town 3 hours away from here. The area is nicer, hardly any crime. The school systems are waaaaayyyyy better and the price for house and land is cheaper and you get more land and sq footage. I also pretty much have a job offer for about $4 more an hour down there, I told the interviewer that I needed a 3-5 months to get in a position to move and the lady told me to call her when I am ready to move down there as she will have some openings. My husband wants to also get back in the work force as now both girls are starting school, which supplements our income.

So We are trying to fix up the few little things that need done and sell this house. But here is the thing. I really don't have Down payment money unless this house sells. So what can I do?

Truthfully our house is the nicest on the block as far as interior. Everything was updated in 2009, with new siding this year. We are also wanting to add a new front porch prior to selling and the back yard has raised garden beds, fruit bushes and rose bushes that we put in.

I contacted a mortgage lender through our bank to work on pre-approval for the home loan to see what we can get, but he is not responding to me or my questions, so I am going to have to get a new person, which I am miffed about because he pulled our credit scores and stuff.

I have not talked to a Realtor yet as we are trying to finish up the little things with this house.

So enough rambling, does anyone have good advice?

[MoondancerMilkyWay]

First, here's some horrible advice: don't do it! buying my house was the biggest nightmare ever!
now for real advice:
get a new mortgage guy and take your papers with you. The information he pulled is YOURS, right? ask for "copies" even if someone later has to pull records if your score is over 740 it won't affect it much if at all.

Also, look into how much value doing repairs and things will add to the house. if it costs you 2K to put in a front porch, will it add 5K to the value of the house? 1K? 2K? ie, is it worth the effort?
we ended up ditching our first realtor and our first lender in favor of people who WOULD return our calls. it's their job to work for YOU, not your job to do their work for them....
start now looking for a place. get a realtor and start looking, tour houses, do the whole thing. it took us months to find the right place and about 3 months or so to actually close on the house (ours was a very special case fraught with problems) so start early and look often! Realtors are a dime a dozen but the good ones are out there!
i used Estately.com to find my house and got excellent alerts as well as soon as things came up.

[elish2]

First, here's some horrible advice: don't do it! buying my house was the biggest nightmare ever!
now for real advice:
get a new mortgage guy and take your papers with you. The information he pulled is YOURS, right? ask for "copies" even if someone later has to pull records if your score is over 740 it won't affect it much if at all.

Also, look into how much value doing repairs and things will add to the house. if it costs you 2K to put in a front porch, will it add 5K to the value of the house? 1K? 2K? ie, is it worth the effort?
we ended up ditching our first realtor and our first lender in favor of people who WOULD return our calls. it's their job to work for YOU, not your job to do their work for them....
start now looking for a place. get a realtor and start looking, tour houses, do the whole thing. it took us months to find the right place and about 3 months or so to actually close on the house (ours was a very special case fraught with problems) so start early and look often! Realtors are a dime a dozen but the good ones are out there!
i used Estately.com to find my house and got excellent alerts as well as soon as things came up.

Thanks! I have actually been looking through a few house selling sites and have a nice list (about 100 houses) narrowed down. It is difficult to go viewing as we live over 3 hours away from the area, but I have a week of time coming up where I am off work, so we are planning to go looking. My Step-mother is a Realtor in Pennsylvania, and has some referrals for me as far as buyer agents.

I do not want to do really expensive upgrades to the house for little value, so I am not planning on redoing the roof or new windows. We are planning some repainting and shoe molding, a few fixed tiles and finishing up the last bit of siding that needs done. The biggest thing is the front porch, but my hubby says that is not as expensive as I think. It will just add a little more curb appeal. There used to be a concrete slab with steps that led to the door, but after we got this house we were told we had to remove it by the city (which I did not get since the slab was there waaaayyyy before we got the house). So right now there are some cheap wood steps my hubby placed.

My dad is suggesting we fix up the house and go rent for a while in the area until our house sells and we save up some money.

[melodys_angel]

No real advice other then what you already have, but I wish you the best of luck!

[FantasticFirefly]

I helped sell a few houses at this point, my value came in on the more setup, cleanup and staging aspect. I am not familiar obviously with how some of the financial rules work in the US or if there is anything you can take advantage of program wise in your state.

universal stuff,
don't overprice. there is a limit to how much you can get on a street, even if your house is 4 times as nice with more expensive updates vs. the other houses on the street. On the flip side, don't allow a realtor to be lazy and totally undersell your home to get them a quicker sale with less work. How long on average do houses in the direct area (that are comparable in size etc to yours) stay on the market? Good info to know.

If it looks overstuffed or busting at the seams and seems too small for your family just by looking inside potential buyers will be more apt to think it will be too small and stuffed for them too. Now is the time to declutter, and start getting rid of and selling anything your family no longer needs, will save you needing to pack and the extra expense to move extra stuff to the new place as well. Pack up distracting items ahead of time. if you have walls covered in personal photos it's something to put away now (rather then something a little more generic like art pieces) and being a pony collector I would pack all those lovelies up before the house is shown.

Keep it as sparkling clean as possible as well, scrub everything. Sparkly windows, walls without finger prints and a kitchen without any spatters or cooking grease residues or crumbs in the cabinets or appliances. If you have pets, see if you have someone you can trust to have them for a bit while your home is on the market. A surprising number of people do have allergies or think pets are filthy/icky (obviously this works better if homes are on the market for a couple weeks ish). non-smoking house? if so, you're a smart cookie. Smoking houses take much longer to sell too and I don't think I need to elaborate why.

Little things. Cheap fixes can do wonders, like swapping out cracked switchplates and repainting a wall that's been patched but not painted over yet. The impression is if someone didn't fix something so minor, is there something major they are neglecting as well?

Also see what comps offer. Is it common for sellers to get an inspection ahead of time in the area? that sort of thing.


Oh, see if there's any good money groups you can join or blogs you can read. Not high end investment types, or get rich quick schemes but about budgeting with financial rules and tips applicable to most of us. (US peeps help me out, is Dave Ramsey good? our best is Gail Vaz-Oxlade, very sound financial advice that's more conservative and against consumer debt. (*edit to add* It's almost ALWAYS a bad idea to buy before your home's sale is finalized, unless you can easily afford to carry two properties. In that respect your father is giving you good advice if the requirement for this position is to move now rather then later)

Finally *hugs* Hopefully you have a lot of help from your family, moving or even thinking about it can be so stressful. It does look like you have very sound reasoning for wanting to move! I wish you all the best.

[elish2]

Thanks FantasticFirefly, that is wonderful advice! I have been thinking about the showing, and my hubby was talking about just starting to pack some stuff up, but we will just have to wait and see how things lay out for us. Even if it means we can't really move until next year, but things will be what they are. I am not sure how things will turn out, but yes, it has been stressful enough for me as is.

[kaoskat]

None from me but I do wish you luck!