Expand Quote
I've dedicated almost the entirety of 2019 to trying to buy a house and I'm at the point of giving up, or at least taking an extended break. If I go after a house that's priced low I get beat by cash investments no matter how high over asking I go. If I go after a house toward the top of my budget, I find items that need to be fixed that I wouldn't be able to afford. The latter just happened this week on a house where my offer got accepted but I had to back out and I'm feeling pretty disheartened by it.
On a less severe but still discouraging note, I've been working on making a solo record for the past few years but always end up taking extended breaks because of drastic life events getting in the way. This year I've managed to get pretty far considering how busy I am, and just the other day the harddrive on the computer I was using crashed. Luckily I have a new computer, but it crashed as I was preparing to transfer files and progress, so it is very likely that I'll have to start from scratch for like the 5th time.
I think we're from the same general area, and yeah, buying your first house totally sucks right now. I was in the same position two years ago and we looked for months with much of the same results. Everything in our budget needed like at least 20k worth of repairs. Some of the houses straight up needed to be bulldozed. Anything worth it got scooped up by flippers with cash offers. The only reason we got our house is because the selling agent was a fucking lunatic. Our house belonged to an old lady who died and her brother was in charge of selling it, but really couldn't do much because he lived quite a ways away. Anyway, we made our offer at asking price then the selling agent tells our agent that she had 10 offers, including ours, multiple for cash, but chose ours because our realtor had been in the business for 20+ years. It was total luck that we got it.
Hang in there and hopefully you'll find something. The market is fucking ridiculous right now but who knows when it will tank and homes will be affordable again. I know people who bought houses similar to mine back in like 08-09 for under 100k and sold them recently for 50-60k more than they paid and it makes me so jealous. Just keep your credit high and save whatever you can because you're going to need it.
Buying a house sucks. I just bought in April, we actually had to settle for one that needs a little work but is livable as is for now. Our old landlord called us and told us she wasn't renewing our lease cause she wanted to sell. Pretty much at the worst time. My wife was in her last semester of a 5 year doctoral program, not working. We had just had a conversation about staying in that rental one more year while we save some more money to buy.
We basically got that call and got it all done in 45 days. House market where we are wasn't too bad, but to be in the area my wife wanted to be for the kids to be in decent schools was slim. We would set up showings with our buy and he would call us a day or two before to let us know it was under contract. We basically had to go see houses the day they started showing. That's what we did for the one we bought, we were the first people to see it once it was made available to show. Put an offer in before we left it. My wife loves the house, location, school district for the kids. I am pretty "meh" on it, maybe cause I am the one that will have to do most of the work. Maybe cause I think for $300k we could have gotten something in a little better shape, but time wasn't on our side.
Hang in there, the right one will pop up. If there is nothing forcing you to leave your current situation, like we had, I would stick it out and wait for the right one to fall in your lap.