House Hunting
JT and I started house hunting back in November, mainly because I found a house that I fell in love with on Zillow. We weren't super serious about buying a house yet but my parents encouraged us to get pre-approved and I'm glad we did then because it's been a long process for us. Once the new year started and our schedules weren't as busy we decided to get serious. Our apartment lease is up in July, so we are hoping it all pans out well. This whole process has been such a learning experience and honestly I don't even think I will ever fully understand everything that goes into buying a
house. All I can say is THANK GOD for our realtor Julie Mahfood and mortgage broker Julie Wheeler, they have been SO helpful throughout this process and I can't thank them enough for putting up with all of our questions and concerns! And yes it has been a little confusing working with two Julie's lol but they are amazing and if you ever need either in south Florida contact them! Anyways, here are a few things I've learned during our house hunting process.
Make sure you trust your realtor and they are looking out for your best interests. Our realtor is amazing, she is JT's friends mother and she helped us find our apartment before we even moved to Florida.
Get pre-approved early on. That way you're able to figure out your budget and then have your mortgage broker run numbers on different houses so you can get an idea of your monthly mortgage payment and other fees that you may not be aware of when buying a house.
Don't get your hopes up about a house before touring it. This is hard. As I said above, the reason we started house hunting was because I fell in love with a house I found on Zillow. This was a mistake, after seeing the house it was definitely out of the question. You could tell the seller bought the house and flipped it and cut corners while renovating, It was so obvious. You find out a lot about what you truly want in a house during the hunting process.
If you find a house you like make sure you go see it at least twice before making an offer. and at different times during the day. This will help you envision your home in different kinds of lighting and you will notice things you didn't notice the first time around.
Consider cosmetic fixes. You may not want to update at all, but you will learn that its hard to find something that is absolutely perfect within your budget.
We haven't bought a house YET, but were hoping to in the next couple months. I will be sure to post an update when it happens along with some home buying tips, stay tuned on instagram ~ @brunchandthebeach.
Thanks for reading!
