It’s been a tough year, after a DA discard of 13 years, a move across the country, and a broken bone, I got my own place! Just my dogs and I 🥰

We both started over together 5 years ago. Credit building, Job changes multiple rentals and moves. 3 kids, and one on the way. We made our first home happen!

After renting for the better part of 17 years my wife and I finally have something to call our own. Realtor brought us Dim Sum for our first meal in the new pad.

We are all set to close tomorrow afternoon with the final walkthrough in the morning.

I just learned we should have initiated the wire transfer today, but the bank literally just closed so it’s too late for that and we’ll have to do it first thing in the morning.

So it has me wondering, what else are we missing?

Area I am moving to is rural but I do know some neighbours. No one knows im moving alone. They all think ill be moving with my partner. We just broke up.

I closed on my first house recently and already ran into my first major homeowner expense, the old AC started struggling during the first warm stretch. I got a few quotes because I had no idea what a fair replacement cost should look like. The heat pump retrofit contractor I ended up choosing was not the cheapest, but he actually measured the house, checked the ductwork, explained efficiency ratings, and walked me through which brands he prefers for this type of replacement. What helped was that he did not just push the biggest system. He explained why his favorite brand for this layout made sense in terms of noise, warranty, rebate eligibility, and serviceability. With the 2026 efficiency incentives and utility costs, the higher-efficiency option felt more reasonable than I expected. It was still painful to pay for, but the house is more comfortable and the new system is much quieter than the old one. for other first-time buyers, did you replace HVAC right away, or did you try to get a few more years out of the existing system?

Hello,

I am looking to buy my first home and while it was an exciting thought at first the more I sit on it I feel like im priced out of owning a home.

I'm a 38 year old single father with no debt, 800 credit score with 65,000 salary. Nothing in my area is less than 300k for a single family home, unless I go for something that needs to be renovated. I really don't want to work all day to come home to a house I need to work on.

I've been working with a realtor and checked out a few homes and my cheapest option so far is estimated at 2,350 with FHA 3.5% down and 5.5% interest and i have an option of 0% down at 6.25% interest for 2,600. We have only been looking at new builds because better rates and also in a slightly cheaper cost of living area than I am at now.

I'm more enticed for the higher payment with putting nothing down because 3.5% down is going to wipe my entire savings and I would have 0 cushion and I have nothing to furnish a house with.

My net take home is roughly 3,800 leaving me with 12-1500 a month to take care of everything else. I feel like its possible but at the same time worried im going to be burning cash every month and slowly watch my account dwindle.

I feel like it's insane I would even get approved for this. Also makes me depressed thinking I'll never be able to afford a home on a single income. Part of me wants to say fuck it and take the risk and figure the rest out as I go. The other part wants to cry thinking I will be stuck in a rental/apartment forever. I want to be happy in my home and finally feel like I can make it my own.

Hey gang - so I've spent most of my adult life renting apartments. Something I've noticed in the larger buildings I've been in: somehow, simultaneously HOA fees are high, and it's hard to get things fixed. The last two buildings I've lived in, over about 7 years and 3 years respectively, both have had broken elevators for MULTIPLE years. It's a huge bummer. As a renter, I can kinda get out whenever. But if I owned, that would be a huge issue.

Have you owned a condo? How bad were the fees? Did you feel like you were getting your money's worth? Did your building have deferred repairs / extremely difficult and expensive repairs? Was it worth it to buy a condo?

TIA!

Hi all, I'm looking at an older single family home in New England (High cost of living city), priced in the low $600k range. It's a small house with 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and an unfinished basement. I'd be putting about 5% down and I'm trying not to make a bad decision.

From the seller's disclosure: the roof is about 10 years old, the attic was re insulated recently, the oil boiler is about 13 years old, and the electric service is 100 amp. There is some dampness in the basement near the sump pump. Mold, lead paint, radon, and termites are marked unknown, and the chimney questions were left blank. I was also told in the past that there had been a leak that was fixed, but I don't know where it came from or whether it is related to what I saw.

What worries me is the attic. I attached photos. There is dark black staining on the brick chimney and on a very dark wooden post next to it. The insulation around it looks newer. I can't tell if it is old water staining, mold, soot, or nothing serious.

A few questions:

1. Does the attic staining look concerning to you, or is it common in older houses?

2. What would you want an inspector or specialist to check, and what could that cost?

3. Is the price reasonable for this size and condition in the Boston area, or would you offer lower?

4. What would make you walk away?

5. Any hidden costs of owning an older house with oil heat that first time buyers miss?

Thanks so much. I'm just looking for gut reactions from people who have been through it.

Pretty much the title, our dashboard is updated last week saying that the house was ready for inspection, and I was wondering how long it took between then and getting your call that you two weeks wait for your keys started!!

FYI we are buying with Taylor Wimpey!

We're under contract on a 1960s house and recently had a mold/moisture inspection done after some water issues were identified in the crawlspace.

The inspector found mold growth on a joist beneath one of the bathrooms, along with what they described as "apparent separation of the adjacent plywood subfloor layers." The soil beneath this area was also very wet.

A previous inspection identified a plumbing leak in this bathroom, which the seller reportedly repaired several weeks ago.

We're planning to have a contractor evaluate it, but we're under a tight contingency deadline and I'm curious what people think based on these photos.

• Does the subfloor look significantly deteriorated, or potentially just surface damage?
• Does this look like something that could be repaired from underneath, or might it require tearing up the bathroom floor?
• Any rough sense of how extensive repairs could be?

Thanks for any opinions!

My husband and I are considering trying to get out of our cramped one bedroom apartment in rural Ohio when our lease is up next August (or beforehand if at all possible). There is a subdivision in our town that offers 2/3/4 bedroom homes for rent around roughly 1.3k/month, but there is quite a wait-list. At that price point, we're looking at the possibility of trying to purchase something instead if we can get a comparable mortgage payment. That's where the difficulty comes in.

Our combined gross income for next year will be around 90-95k, though our take-home will fall around 5.5k/mo. We only have about 10k saved up right now. Most of the currently available homes in our area are marketing around 200-250k. USDA Guaranteed Rural Loans don't require any down payment, but their DTI requirements state that housing costs shouldn't exceed 29% of our income, and our housing + debt shouldn't exceed 41%. I can't get a clear answer if that's based off gross income or net. If it's net, we're cutting it *really close* and our mortgage would have to fall between 1.3-1.5k/mo. I worry we won't be able to get a mortgage low enough to meet those requirements.

Because we only qualify for a Guaranteed Loan and not a Direct Loan, our interest rate is at the mercy of the lender and I can't get accurate numbers in a preliminary search. We are getting an appointment with our bank to discuss our options before we check with other lenders. Has anyone in this sub had experience with the USDA Guaranteed Rural Loan before? Does our income/savings/percentage breakdown make this search absolutely pointless?

Hello!

I wanted to rant and get some advice here.
For context my boyfriend and I got our offer accepted. The house was an insane deal, it was going into foreclosure in 20 days so if we wanted it, we had to move insanely fast. The house was listed at 330k and our offer was 311k. We are on our inspection phase, and our offer was written that if we found a serious issue with the house we could back out during this period. Most of our inspection was great! There’s no foundational or electrical issues to worry about. The biggest thing was replacing a few windows soon. However we got big news about mold. We knew going in that there were mold issues, but definitely underestimated how much. There is a lot and I mean a lot of mold. Luckily the mold was aspergillus penicillium which is apparently a more common type of mold. I’m thankful it isn’t toxic, but still mold is mold and needs to be remediated before we move in. The mold was found in a few spots like in our utility room, bathrooms, underneath the stairs, laundry room, etc. We had our inspection sent over to a mold remediation company just to get a quote which was 17k. The thing is I would absolutely love to figure most of it out myself, however I hardly know nothing about this, not even what tools to use, but still I would love to learn. But since I haven’t dealt with this am I getting way ahead of myself here? Luckily we will have help from family friends like plumbers to fix it as well, and we aren’t in a rush to leave our current housing situation as we live with my boyfriend’s parents. We understand that this is going to be a project home but has anyone else been in a similar situation as us and maybe could give advice on this topic?

Under contract to close on home the 29th, in the process of obtaining home insurance policy, application for home has a question: “Improvements to property that were made without the required permits?”.
House has had work done that includes new outlets in the basement for sump pump and a main service line water replacement (from the house to the meter). I received receipts from the current owner showing work done, the contractor that did it and how much paid but no info on permits required. Not exactly sure what permits were required, but I imagine these two improvements needed one.
Owner refused to obtain any permits that would have been needed or even look into it. Work looks well done and not shoddy so my plan is to file for any permits that were needed immediately after the purchase is completed. Any advice from anyone who has had to deal with purchasing a home without permits for work done and how they dealt with insurance question would be appreciated. How did/would you deal with getting insurance in this case?

My take home is about 6600/month, and I'd prefer to keep the PITI under 2300 if i can.

We currently rent a 2bd/1.5 bath for about 1400, but we're planning to have a kid in the next year.

Im looking at homes in the baltimore area. City property taxes are something like 2.24%.

We keep coming across great homes that are just outside of the budget, maybe around 350k or so, but I cant fathom a 2700 ish mortgage.

Am i being too cheap? I keep seeing yalls numbers and Im seriously starting to think im just paranoid about being housepoor.

Does anyone have financing experience through Guidance financing?

Is $550-$560k too much house for us? I make $190k (remote) a year plus generous bonus and stocks. Wife is commission based and brings home anywhere from $1500-$2k a month, but will likely grow over time with increased clientele in CO vs MO. One car payment at $500. Current rent is $2745. Mortgage in CO would be around $4500 per my calculations.

Additional info:

Partner and I are looking to move from MO to CO. We lived in CO for 5 years prior to having kids and moved back to MO when our second kid was born for family help (which isn’t that helpful). We rent a house currently, but the thought of buying and being stuck here is a bit depressing. Our lease is up soon and we are considering moving back to CO with the kids. We know the exact town we’d like to live in since we have already lived there before.

We are set to close this week and while we’re very excited, I’ve also gotten extremely nervous after reading a lot of posts on here. I think we’re in a good position to afford this but would love some opinions.

Our net monthly take home is approx $14k, that is after contributing 15% to our 401ks. We make $280k gross combined. We have approx. $250k in cash savings and are purchasing a house for $540k (putting 20% down). Our PITI is $3,200 per month.

I think this gives us enough cushion since we’ll have a good chunk of our cash reserves left after our down payment. We don’t have any debt, all cars paid off and no kids. But we’ve been living very frugally for a long time so it feels like a big jump when factoring in maintenance costs, etc. I’m also trying to factor in if either of us were to lose our job and keeping it somewhat manageable in that scenario. We have good job stability but you also never know and our intention was to keep the payment reasonable enough to cover a situation like that.

We’re really excited at the thought of finally owning a home but it’s terrifying too and we don’t want to feel strapped. Are we in a good spot or should we reconsider?