Home Buying One-Oh-My-Goodness-One

As you may know (from talking to us or from reading this phlog) Ian and I are in process of buying our first home. People say "what an exciting time" or "that's fantastic it is such a rewarding adventure" but what they don’t tell you is the amount of stress that comes from buying your first home. And for that reason, you may be hearing a lot about the process from me over the next 60-90 days.

We moved here with the intent of buying and we have been working toward that goal ever since we crossed the TX border. First, we explored the area to decide where we wanted to focus. Then, we bought a few books for first time homebuyers ("The Virgin Homebuyer" and "100 Question Every First-Time Homebuyer Should Ask"). After that, we signed up for Informal Courses at the University of TX.

Come mid-November we took some time off from the process to enjoy the holidays with the goal of kicking the process in to high-gear on January 1. As soon as we came back from vacation, we started talking to a lender. And we set up interviews with real estate agents.

On Thursday, we met with two agents they were wonderful, but one had something the other didn’t: she specialized in the area where we want to buy (and she had been selling real estate for more than 20 years in Austin, where she was born and raised). The other, although referred from our friends was wonderful, but had only been here for 6 years and didn’t specialize in any particular area. We had one agent left to interview on Saturday – she was a total dud. She had only been in the biz for 2 years and she was fairly negative from the start. So today we called them all back, thanked them politely for their time and went with the one with 20 years experience who specializes in 78704.

Now, on to the nerve wrecking process of "shopping our lender." Thank God that we have a friend here in town that is a mortgage specialist. She has offered to sit down with us and help us know what the heck to do. I have to tell you (I am sure it is no surprise) the most nerve wrecking part is the mortgage part. The part where you sign away your soul to the bank. Thankfully you get a home out of it.

This afternoon we drove by a few places that are on the market in our price range I our area. Before you get to attached to any of these places (Mom) they may not be right for us, we haven't seen the insides, all we did to day was drive by to check out the neighborhoods around them.

Here are the pictures:

I like this one it is on a corner lot, it has a "studio out back" for storage, it is on a corner lot and it is in an awesome neighborhood. However, when we drove by the sign said "contract pending" (which of course it didn't say on AustinHomeSearch.com).

This one is also in a good area, very very close to Zilker Park, and although it is in the middle of the city, it is really quite there.
This one has a tree going thru the porch roof, a large back yar, right off Congress Ave, and about 12 blocks from the railroad tracks. However it looks like it does NOT have central air and this is Texas.
This one is one block from the railroad tracks (very loud) but looks like a real find. If only there weren't track, oh-wait, that might be why it is going for so cheap.
This one also doesn't have central air, it os over by Zilker and it looks like it is falling down.
Ok, that's it for now, there will be many many more in the coming weeks. If you have any advice, leave us a comment, right now we could really use some advice.