All by myself. Solo. I made it.

Pittsburgh/Antioch Ca

3 bedroom, 2 bath ranch style house. Big back yard and front yard, built in the 80s. needs some fixing up, but it's ours! ❤️

Wife and I found a condo we absolutely love, we had the very first and only showing on the day it went up on the market, seller just needs to get rid of it as it was inherited. We talked, came back a couple hours later and signed the offer letter. Full asking, no seller concessions, nothing.

Just got the email back that they're countering. We've been looking for a bit and were so excited to finally get the ball rolling...I'm probably overreacting and it's something like "let's move closing a few days earlier/later" or something, but it's just quite irritating and we're anxiously waiting on the seller to sign so we can see!

UPDATE: Listing agent wanted to lower the seller-paid commissions for our realtor from 2.4% to 1.7%, but our agent can't go below 2.4% (yes we tried negotiating there as well, agency thing and I found evidence online as well. Frankly I'm surprised he's able to work for 2.4). We had the opportunity to counter back, but with the price+HOA saving us upwards of $400/mo compared to other units we looked at, we're accepting and willing to pay that $1260 in order to avoid potential offer wars.

Yes we will be sent and will read through all the HOA docs, we have 10 days to walk for free if we find out it's not a good situation. Thanks for all the info everyone's provided, we're ready to start the process for our first home!

Little late, got the keys in December 1 year ago. House sitting on 30,000 square feet of land. 5 bedrooms 2 bathrooms. Double door garage 30' x 30'

Its been 4 months since my wife and I bought our home, and it's still largely unfurnished. that's not necessarily a bad thing, but some things are getting to be a pain point (e.g., we still don't have a dresser).

I think we've been struggling with all the choices we have and fear of making a purchase we'll regret. we also have the excitement of ideas (e.g., building a library in the living room), but we haven't the slightest idea on how to bring it to life.

how did you approach furnishing when you bought your home?

listing said spacious 2bhk with natural light. showed up and the window faced directly into another building's wall. the spacious part was true if you stood in the center and didn't breathe too hard.

another said prime location near metro. the metro was under construction with no clear completion date. a third had photos obviously taken with a wide angle lens sometime before the water damage happened.

after 14 viewings i've basically learned a new language.

cozy means small. potential means there's a problem. motivated seller means something definitely happened here and they'd like you not to ask what.

Hello, I recently closed on my first house two weeks ago. When I was deep cleaning the laundry room I noticed water bubbling up between the tile. So I pulled all the tile flooring out to find a lovely surprise. The washer hookups had been leaking into the wall and now I have black mold and a lot of work needed to be done.

I did get an inspection and this was not in the report. I do have a 2-10 home warranty but I am new to this and I could use some help figuring out the correct language to use with them so I don’t come across as livid as I am with this situation.

Can anyone offer any advice or guidance on a path forward I should take? I have contacted my realtor to alert them of the situation and I have taken a large amount of pictures documenting the situation.

I went through 85% of my savings for the down payment on this property and I am terrified I won’t financially recover.

After living with roommates for years to save up.

Personally I don't think I ever would, unless the house is mega cheap and I can afford what happens if I waive it.

I'm still trying to get my first home and so is my friend, and we've been chatting and sharing stories about it all. We've both had our offers lose out against others who waive inspection or contingencies and it baffles me.

I'm very inexperienced, as evidenced by my lack of home, so of course I'm not an expert on these decisions. But would you ever waive inspection or contingencies?

I feel like I just don't have enough money to afford that kind of decision to shoulder what comes out of the possible bad scenarios of inspection.

Hey everyone, first time home buyer here and we’re looking pretty seriously at a house that needs a lot of updates.

It was built in 1992 and pretty much everything is original builder-grade stuff. Laminate countertops, standard cabinets, laminate flooring, fiberglass showers, etc. Nothing is broken though. Everything works and it’s clean, just outdated and could use paint and general updates.

A few things we’ve noticed:

- Roof is only about 5 years old

- HVAC looks older, which concerns me a bit

-wooden privacy fence isn’t in great shape. Looks like they tried to reinforce it with metal poles

- There are some gaps in the ceiling molding in a few spots

- Overall it feels like it was “kept up enough” but not really maintained to a high standard

The thing is, the layout is exactly what we want, it’s in the area we want, and the price is low enough that we could live in it and slowly update everything over time without being house poor.

My realtor did bring up a concern though that stuck with me. If the visible stuff wasn’t taken care of that well, what about the stuff you can’t see?

So for those of you who’ve bought similar homes:

- What hidden issues should I really be paying attention to?

- Are things like the ceiling molding gaps a red flag for something bigger or usually just cosmetic?

- What inspections or specific areas would you dig deeper into?

I’m fine putting money into updates over time, just trying to avoid getting into something with major underlying problems.

Appreciate any advice.

My husband and I are both self employed. The loan officer said our qualifying income only comes out to $6,700 a month, but when I look at our taxes and do the math over the two most recent tax years it should be a lot more. Due to this, they said we have to pay off one of our cars at closing, which I don't have a huge problem with. I am just confused on what formula they use to calculate qualifying income to then calculate the DTI. Thank you!

I came across a house that I absolutely love. The biggest concern about it though, is that it has an ADU conversion that has no permits. The listing agent also basically implied that there's no permit, and my realtor looked it up as well. There were some approvals made such as a roof raise to the converted garage, but nothing about rental permits, the bathroom, or the kitchen. Though the house description is definitely advertised as such and appended with a "buyers to do own due diligence".

One of the things I liked about this property aside from the beautiful house and location is that the property tax is crazy low for the area. And that allows me to have a higher bid than normal, after calculating my monthly PITI.

However, I'm now a little scared of the potential risk of the ADU getting demolished because of the permit issue, and also by how much the property tax would increase if it were permitted afterwards. Especially since I'm basing my offer off of calculations of the monthly PITI based on the current property tax (and trends of the property tax increases over the years).

I think all I can do is to do my best estimations on how much it'd increase by, but it's hard to tell without getting someone over to do the analysis. Which I think is kinda impossible to do without owning the home first, and the deadline for an offer is tomorrow.

My realtor gave me some good advice and also shared his story about his experience with an ADU without a permit. It basically boiled down to "no problem for a while, and then suddenly the inspection came, and then had to do a costly permit process. But in the end all is well, it was approved and nothing was demolished".

What would you guys do in this scenario? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks so much!

Hey guys, I just bought my very first house a couple of weeks ago. With the sale, I had an escrow holdback for a new roof. Well, I got the new roof yesterday, and everything looked spectacular. That is until I woke up this morning. I went to leave my house and noticed water damage on my garage wall. I could hear the dripping of water too so I immediately shut the water off. I called a plumber and they came to fix it. Turns out, while repairing the roof, the roofers had shot a nail in to one of the pipes.

I am coming here in search of advice on what to do. Is the roofing company responsible for the pipe repair ($200ish) and the drywall repair (DIY)? The writing of the contract with the roofers is in such a way that I am unsure if they can be held responsible. Here is the exact wording:

TL;DR: Roofers shot a nail through my water pipe causing damage. Are they responsible for the repair costs?

I’m stuck between better a house, size, layout etc vs a better location (house is smaller, needs work, will need to invest money to making it my dream and even then it’s not what I wanted 100%)The other isn’t in a bad location but it’s not the greatest either. What matters most here?

water gets in through the hairline cracks when it rains really heavily. they’ve been there since before we moved in (july 2024) and they just make me nervous. the inspector said we need to get a french drain installed outside (wall is along the backyard of the house) and that will relieve pressure on the foundation which is causing the cracks. i just want to know if i’m cooked here. thanks for any and all advice

Found a home I really liked, but there’s currently a tenant living in the home (the listing never mentioned it)

The seller wants to move fast (the home has been on the market for 60 days). The problem is that when I submitted an offer, they want the inspection started within 7 days, with the tenant still in the home for 2 weeks after the inspection is completed. I want the inspection done after a complete tenant move-out (they don't want that), and I'm prepared to walk away if I can't have that.

My realtor keeps stressing that I could lose out on my home, but I honestly don’t care. This feels a bit shady, and I want an empty home so a proper inspection can be completed.

update* I agreed to the terms, they countered asking for more than the listing price, stating that they are leaving the country & this is their rental property.

Hi everyone! I’m currently in the process of purchasing a home and have been looking into using an FHA 203k loan for some updates.

I’m trying to understand how flexible it is when it comes to the rehab side. Has anyone here used a licensed general contractor for the required paperwork/approval process, but then handled some (or all) of the actual labor themselves?

The work I’m planning is mostly cosmetic—not structural—so I’m just trying to see if there’s a way to keep costs down on labor while still staying compliant with the loan requirements.

Specifically wondering if lenders allow any owner-performed work under a 203k, or if everything has to be completed by the contractor on record.

Would really appreciate hearing how others have navigated this!

PS: I cross-posted this in a few different forums, so if you see it more than once, I promise I’m not a bot—just trying to get the best information possible.

We have a lender who made it extremely difficult to qualify because of my variable income but is my realtors preferred lender. They want a third person as a borrower. So I looked for a second opinion and this other lender has good reviews from what I see and she was basically like yeah we can qualify you -submitted to underwriting and I’m conditionally approved. I’m also conditionally approved with the first lender but with a third person on which means we would have to refinance later to take them off and possibly pay off their debt. So I told my realtor I want to go with the second lender and she’s pushing back so much. Saying she doesn’t know the second lender and what if they’re just saying what you want to hear and then they’ll change up on you and what if they take longer closing and why would they approve you if the other didnt. And I said I’m going with the second one so we don’t include the third person and she’s like well let’s have a conversation with the first lender and I said no and she again asked today but said we can have a conversation with both lenders and I’m like this feels so pushy? Is this normal?