BABY STEPS WILL GET YOU THERE!
May 14th, 2009 categories: Buying
Home prices are down, interest rates are down and you don’t have QUITE enough for a down payment on a home. Your heart is yearning for your own place and when you run the figures you just don’t quite have enough for closing costs, down payment and moving. Of course you will want to do some fixing up to your new home and you just can’t stretch the available dollars to do it all.
If you can’t afford a huge monthly payment consider taking “baby steps” to your new home. Think about a property that may need some improvements–some updating–a property you could move into, live comfortably and then fix up things like the kitchen and bathrooms. Think about finding a home with expansion possibilities too–especially if the home you are buying is one of the smaller less expensive homes in the area.
Some projects you can probably do on your own–painting, wall paper removal, that sort of thing. Hiring a professional electrician and plumber is undoubtedly a good idea. A key component in the purchase of your “baby step” home is a good inspection–this can help you decide if a home is a real “handyman special” or if it just needs some TLC. The inspection will give you an idea of the age of the appliances and if it is a single family home, the condition of the roof and mechanical systems. The results of the inspection will help you decide whether or not you want to tackle the improvement of a specific property.
Think about how long you want to stay in this “baby step” home–do all your improvements with an eye to reselling in a few years. If you like dark walls, be prepared to re-paint them before selling. And be careful about over improving–that is a big no no unless you are going to enjoy the over improvements for a long time. Go slowly in buying and improvement–
Do you need someone to talk to about buying or selling Chicago real estate? If you do–let me know–call me 312-981-2360 or e-mail me.
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 1:44 pm and is filed under Buying. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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