Long Distance House Hunting (and other ?s)

[bekkiz]

Well, I've bought books (homes bying for dummies etc), but when ever I need advice, the Dis comes through

We're moving, I can fianally say that as about 90% certainty. But I need some help on the whole process.

1. What is the best way to house hunt from afar. I've been checking the real estate web sites etc, for about 5 months now, so I have a pretty good handle on the situation in Seattle. We also just bought tickets to go up there for about 5 days in February to drive around and get a feel for neighborhoods/areas etc. So then what? We can't afford to fly up every weekend, but also want to be very well informed.

2. Because of my work schedule, we have about a 3 week window in June to move up to Seattle. I can't figure out the "Timeline" of housebuying. How can we make sure that we can move in that 3 week window? What is an average timeline? At what point in the process do we go look for a mortgage/loan?

3. I get the whole down payment thing, but should we put down everything we've saved, or should we hold back some for closing costs etc.?

Thanks for any advice I'm pretty new at this

 

[ChristmasElf]

Start with www.realtor.com and enter the information on what your price range is and the size house you are looking for.
When you find one that you think you might want to see, there will be a more information link that will usually take you to the listing agent for that home. You could then call that realtor and go from there.
Most realtors from the area that you will be moving to will be more than happy to send you information on the new city and what they have to offer, schools, cost of living indexes,shopping and entertainment as well.

Just going to the new area without a realtor to show you around will be very time consuming and you will miss things that might make a difference.

 

[barkley]

we'll be up against the same thing in the next year (but fortunatly we won't be on any type of time line).

beyond researching the areas you are considering (and one thing you can do that can be very imformative is to contact a local insurance agent to scope out the insurance rates in neighborhoods you are considering-it can vary greatly from "one side of town" to another and may indicate if an area has a tendancy for specific types of crime) is hooking up with a local realtor in the area you live in. one that is affiliated with a national chain can contact an office in the area you are interested in and provide your "wish list", the realtor in the state you want to move to can send info. on new/existing listings to your home computer. you can start doing this now to get an idea of what's available and to track pricing trends (the area you would love to move to but seems out of your price may show a decrease in the next few months which you would'nt be aware of had you not been watching what was happening with actual sales). the out of state realtor can also arrange to show you only the houses that meet your specifications when you come for your "buying trip".

as far as figuring out the timeline on moving-escrow and closing are largly driven by the needs/desires of the buyer and seller. i've seen houses change hands in as little as 15 days-i've seen houses take 60 because the seller wants to wait for the kids to finish out the school year, need to find their own house to buy...

we actualy plan on renting when we first relocate to a new state-we figure this will give us the opportunity to get to know an area and decide where we want to permanantly settle.

with seattle you have to remember that there is the city itself, but there are lots of outlying communities within reasonable commuting time that may offer more of what you desire in a home. so in looking try to figure out how long a commute you would consider and then finding out which of the neighboring areas you could investigate as well.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

We just did it in April. We had 2 weekends to find a house. Very stressful, esp. since we bought BEFORE we sold the other house.
That was nerve racking. But we were prepared with our house in tip top shape, looking like a display, to sell. We also had an motivated realtor.

This first thing I did was to figure out the school district I wanted. We went to schools to look at them with our own two eyes...That set the area to house hunt.

We looked at alot of "used" houses but settled on new house that was ready for sale. After getting the other house ready for sale, I didn't want to have to fix up another house. Esp. moving cost us 28,000 total (including realtor costs). We needed to recoup and we are still doing that.

I wished I had looked at alot more spec/new homes for sale. I wanted move in ready. I love that about this house. Everything is new. I don't have to worry about fixing anything up right now.

We wanted a "new" subdivision since it would have similiar people relocating, and pretty much that is what it is.
I like the area, dh hates the house.

He needs a private study w/ TV and doesn't have that here. If we had that it would have been perfect.

Good Luck!!!!

 

[PlutoPony]

Realtor.com is good for getting a feel for housing prices and what you can get for you money in various areas but it really doesn't give you any feel for the location of the houses which can be a huge issue.... the beautiful house that seems to perfectly fit your needs on paper may be located on a very busy street or in an area that doesn't hold it's value , etc. THAT's where making contact with a "real life" realtor well before going there can really help. We went back and forth by e-mail and phone with a realtor (recommended to us by the company my husband was going to work for) for several weeks before we made a house hunting trip. Initially gave her basic parameters of preferences and $$, then regularly e-mailed her listings we saw on Realtor.com that we liked. She came back to us with pros and cons of that house, based on the things we told her we were looking for (school districts, traffic flows, etc.) The key to this is knowing what you're looking for and being able to convey that to a realtor! THen when you get there, have the realtor take you around for part of the time so they can get a better feel for you. A realtor can also give you a good idea of the best way to get an offer accepted in the area and the timing for applying for a loan. If you're moving in June you're hitting prime moving season, so plan to book your moving company well in advance if you're using one. And definitely take into account closing costs when deciding how much to put down on a house. Depending on how strong the housing market is, you might get the sellers to pay some of them - again a realtor can give you a better idea of what to plan for in that area. Good luck!

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Just wanted to add we used a global satellite thing on the computer and we would zoom in on the house we were interested in. Really did help, actually.

 

[bekkiz]

Thank you everyone for the help and encouragement--it's a big step

 

[safetymom]

I used Realtor.com when I was looking for a house near Disney. I then called an agency in the area. I emailed her a list of the properties I wanted to see and she added to the list.

I came down for a long weekend. I looked at 30 homes and bought number 25. It was a for sale by owner in one of the neighborhoods we were looking in. I only had a month to find a house and move to FL from PA. They were looking to get out quickly and it worked very well for both of us.

I love the house I bought. I don't think I could have done any better even if I had taken more time.