Home Buying in the Future
Tomorrow Jessie and I will head to Austin, TX for a 6-day exploratory trip where we’ll look for a house to buy with our pre-approved home loan. Here is a map I snapshotted from Trulia (where we spend most of our evenings) with 928 homes in our search area. Home buying in an exploded housing market inspired recession has created a plethora of options inside Jessie and I’s price range. And thanks to the Internet, we can see every single one and make rash judgments based on terrible realtor photos and wide-angle lenses. All these options are making the decision extremely hard.
Nostalgia wants me to think that it was easier “back then”. My ill-conceived version what buying a house in the 80s was like goes like this:
COUPLE: We want a house.
REALTOR: Well, we have these 4 available.
COUPLE: We’ll take that one.
REALTOR: Congratulations! Here’s a key! And a fence! And a dog!
Actually, I bet most people in the 80s were forced with a “BUY or BUILD” dilemma. I know my family did one of each. Jessie and I have thought about getting a lot and putting a prefab “ultra-green, made of compost and recycled diapers” house on it, but even that fancy double wide trailer home costs you half-a-freaking-million dollars. So that’s holding us back. That and cursed indian burial grounds.
So, it’s shaping up to be an exciting week of looking at zillions of houses that we’ve only seen through wide-angle lens photos. Will the Ruperts find the house of their dreams? Will they be close to or far away from Dave’s work at Paravel Design in Marble Falls? Will they brave the gentrified ghettos and settle East? Will they have the chutzpah to negotiate? Wait and see! It could all happen this week! Stay tuned!
If this were an Onion article it’d be titled “SPOILED YUPPIE HAS SO MUCH MONEY HE CAN’T DECIDE WHICH HOUSE TO BUY”. Dang. That’s some humility right there, son!
dudes. good luck. my main pieces of advice would be to
1. NOT buy a place in a questionable neighborhood even if it is exactly what you want.
2.with every house you look at, break down the actual monthly cost. $20,000 doesn’t have a huge impact on your monthly cost, so sometimes it is worth it to get in a better neighborhood.
3. you have some family members that are pretty competent remodellers that are most likely willing to help, so don’t rule out something that needs some work if you are willing to spend tons and tons of weekends doing that instead of fun things.
4. consider using a (competent) realtor. they know neighborhoods, what to look for in houses and what is available. and also, as the buyer, you don’t really pay anything. the seller pays all of the realtor commissions.
Here’s a map of recent crimes in Austin, for your perusal. It only shows recent stuff, but at least you can get some idea of the crime level in various neighborhoods.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/local/spotcrime/index.html
Plus the icons they use make all the crimes look so quaint. Hmm, I wonder why there are so many handcuff icons on 6th street?
Just saying’, if you guys get a little time to make it down to the houston area, ava’s been asking for you two a lot recently.
@brian just because you had a hostage situation on your street doesn’t make you an expert… errr… well… uh.. maybe it does.
@chase that crime map is crazy. so many fists. and Mr. Theft has a wicked drop shadow.
@andy it’s doubtful we’d make it down there, we’ve got a lot of houses to look at. it’s terrible, i know.
i’m excited to see where you end up! hopefully the right thing will come along.
Austin has a ghetto? Cute.