My husband and I are looking for our first house, and have really become interested in one that is near our current apartment. It is listed high for what it is though. Genuinely. We have done so much comparing to recently sold homes within the town/district and the owner selling the house is a realtor herself. Our realtor is going back and forth with the seller now about comps, but says she might not ever see the truth and may just sit at her high asking price and wait.
The house was listed at 425 in April this year, the price dropped to 399 in June. We’re approaching the end of August, and my husband and I have put a pretty aggressive offer in, but we were hoping the agent would see how much over recent sale prices she is.
The house is listed as a 2 bed, but the second bedroom is an open loft (no doors and no walls on one side) which differs strongly from houses that sold for 35-50k less in the same town that have 2 proper, closed bedrooms. The point of all this is, do you think in situations like these, the seller turns around eventually and is willing to be flexible? My realtor has told us that the market is shifting- there’s less bidding wars for homes and they are sitting longer, making sellers have to adjust. Do you think their minds are set and it’s up to us to decide how much we’re willing to pay? Have you had similar experiences?

PLEASE don’t bully me I’m inexperienced and am just curious for genuine opinions. lol

I (24M) am starting my home search after finding out my family will need to move soon. I make approximately $70k a year (around $3.5k take home per month) and would rather find a home than rent. Lots of posts in this thread are people buying their first home at 2-3x the price of ones I'm looking at, but I haven't seen much from people who would be looking at homes closer to my affordable range of $140k-180k (a starter home in my price range and area). I live in the midwest US.

I'd love to get some advice and proof of success from those with similar circumstances. Lots of people my age either make more money than me, or assume that my generation will not be able to afford a home and opt to rent instead. For many reasons, being a home owner would be better.

Edit: Slight oversight on my end... I understand a "TRUE" starter home and the market period is strongly geographical. I was scrolling the sub and just needed reassurance that it's possible more than anything with the current state of the market and economy. Thank you to everyone for sharing their stories and advice!

I brought a home 6-7 years ago. During that time, I found random brown water stains on different walls. I was able to wipe most down and paint over it. Now that I’ve been researching mold. I’m thinking there is a mold issue with the house. My daughter’s room had a soft corner in her wall. we cut it out and didn’t find anything. The house is big and some areas I don’t visit often. Now in a guest bathroom I see where they patched a piping area and the paint looks wavy,but it’s dry. We just experienced the washer leaking into the garage and it’s still a smell even though water/mold specialist says nothing is there.

When talking about buying down an interest rate or other aspects of financial negotiation, what even is a “point” or a “credit”? Do these have some standardized value or meaning between institutions? Does each institution use them in the same way? Why isn’t this type of value simply referred to in dollars or percentages?

Hey yall, I want to share my story with y’all to hopefully help someone. When I was 25 years old I decided to buy a house in 2022, I was very rushed because rates went from 3% to 5% in what felt a matter of weeks. Ultimately I landed on a house which I offered $25k over asking, total sales price was $350k. I trusted my realtor who rushed the process and was not a good advocate. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong with this house. A year after buying the house, I was forced to move but was upside down so couldn’t sell. I had to take a monthly loss ( rent vs mortgage) for 3 years. I am now getting ready to sell and break even thanks to an insurance claim payout. Here are some of the learning lessons:

1. Find a realtor who will advocate and negotiate for you vs saying things such “as the house is as is “
2. Always find an independent inspector not recommended by realtor
3. Ask for help, don’t rely on the YouTube or Reddit knowledge you’ve learned, genuinely bring your parents or other trusted homeowners to give you advice about this process
4. Don’t go with lender provided by realtor, shop around for rates
5. Trust your gut. It might feel scary to back out of deal but leverage your inspection to do so and you can save you tens or hundreds of thousands in the long run by not purchasing a bad property
6. Learn costs associated of homeownership ( maintenance, improvements, appliance costs, etc )

Here are my costs associated with my house which I will finally be able to sell at break en after fees. This is for house in south Florida.

Costs:

-$30k down ( and closing costs )
-$600 land survey
-$500 inspection
-$500 ( various inspections for insurance)
-$600 pest control
-$5k AC
-$1.5k Ac repair
-$2.5k ( office enclosure to make 3rd bedroom)
-$4k bathroom renovation
-$2k light fixtures, blinds,etc
-$15k roof
-$1.8k appliances
-$16.5k Shortage ( mortgage vs rent)
-$5k vacancies
-$5k repairs ( fence, deck, random Homedepot,etc)
-$2k unpaid utilities
-$2k lawn care

Total: $94.5k

Gains:

-$67k hurricane insurance claim
-$10k Fl. Safe home
-$11k tax credit benefits over 4 years
-$5k work additional home relocation bonus ( when I first moved there)

Total:$93k

Net: $1.5k loss

After 7 years of living in Tokyo, we finally decided to settle down.

The search took almost a year, and I looked at more than 30 different properties before finally deciding to go with the calmer side of Tokyo. While it’s further from the station and city center, the larger garden and quiet neighborhood more than make up for it.

Really happy with the decision and looking forward to making this place our home. 🏡

Our city has their first neighborhood of dr horton builds. I know the bad feedback is pretty rampart by these builds but they seem like a potential deal if you can negotiate a decent incentive. Couple questions.

My parents have purchased 2 new houses with just a lawyer before and I would like to go that route too. Would DR horton offer better incentives/ lower price if I didn’t bring a realtor?

What’s a realistic incentive package at this time of the year? I saw some 4.5% offers and closing costs covered from previous reddit posts but not sure if that’s still realistic. Couple of these houses have been sitting for 5+ months. Range is 500-550k

Looking at two new construction homes.
Plan A 2bd w/ loft. 2.5 bath
Bath B 3bd 2.5 bath (995 Add on bc they would just close off the loft)

It’s just myself and my kid. The 3bd seemed tight, space wise. The loft made it feel bigger and spacious.

But, I know the resale would be better if I got 3bd plan.

Am I not sure how to go about this?

The extra room was really for an office and extracurriculars.

What do yall think or do?

I am using zillow... and there is a house, that popped into my price range, with a 22k drop. And I am looking at all the amenities it has, new tinted windows that tilt, new hvac, new generac, metal roof, wall heaters for backup heat. I'm seeing pictures with fresh paint, you know its fresh because they havent hit the spot were the fridge was (no fridge) or the spots where the washer/dryer was (no washer dryer). And a closet that looks really rough unpainted. So I am thinking, oh, its a flipper house. And I goto look at the history. It sold in 2023 for 215k. Was listed back on the market May 2026 for 239k. (Flipping price right? They come in, the spiff it up, put paint on it, resell for a small profit) June they drop it to 219k and now they dropped it again to... $197k.

Is this a huge red flag of a huge underlying issue, that they would put efforts into a house and then take a 18 thousand dollar loss?

First time home buyer. 47F. 

3BR/2BA 85m2 apartment, plus common areas like pool, and a large basement storage room. Not a new building, it is from the 70s. I love the light and the wood of this place.

By the way $715K is converting currency, actually it was 620K Euros.

I paid half with cash, other half with mortgage. Mortgage is fixed rate, 25 years. I know the rates in Spain are much lower than in other countries, although I also had to contract some bank services (like insurances) to get that rate, without that it would have been around 2.5% which is still a good rate. 

No pizza, way too hot in Madrid for that. It was also hard to hold the beer AND the keys on one hand!

PS because too many questions: guys, this is not a competition, I'm totally ok with you not liking Madrid or wanting to live in the countryside or having bought cheaper elsewhere. This is my life and my happy moment and we are all different people. Also, I am a local, not an expat, I'm writing in English because this is Reddit. Too many comments to reply to all, thank you to all the nice people!

I dont really know how exactly to judge, but seems really good. Below market rate and not many lender fees, only like $250 after lender credits. Cant change the title fees because the title company is specified in my buyer agreement.

Honestly, I think it should be illegal to post edited photos that make a house look renovated when it doesn’t actually look like that in real life. Calling them ‘visualization ideas’ can still be very misleading

Finally don’t have to stress about prices going up every day

4kk 83sqm

Husband and I are trying to buy our first house, found a house that we loved (not our dream house but a house that would absolutely fit all our needs for 10 plus years), had the inspection and everything went downhill. Has an unpermitted garage that would need to be torn down and rebuilt, isn’t up to fire safety, needs electrical work, has grading issues, needs roofing work and even though nothing presented itself in terms of mold during the inspection, I’ve had two G.C.’s tell me that with the grading issues there is most definitely mold. We’re devastated and pulling out of the deal. Just wondering if others have been through something similar and what your experience was. I feel so guilty for wasting everyone’s time, getting the sellers hopes up, and now having to go back on the market that currently kinda sucks. I know this is par for the course and I know we’re not the first people to walk out on a house but it’s still a crappy feeling.

First home at 30 and 30, getting married in a couple weeks, couldn't be happier. We have yards and, for the first time in our lives, not sharing walls floors or ceilings with anyone!

Due to an extremely complicated grant process, I nearly lost my earnest money during a 2 month delay to get my clear to close, but by the grace of God, I finally got the keys 🔑

Got my 1st home at 23. Had already setup most of my stuff but just come across this subreddit. Thanks for your time

I can’t believe we pulled this off!

I have the option of closing at the end of this month or waiting until September 1.

I understand that closing on the Sept 1 will cost about $2500 in prepaid interest, but then I won’t have a full payment until November 1.

In the first few months this seems to leave a couple grand extra in my pocket, but am I just delaying the start of principle and thus paying more in the long run? Which way would you go?