FIRST TIME HOME BUYER = US

We are "middle Class" Americans trying to buy a home and make it our own without breaking the bank, but how does a person do it? Well that's the fun part; with time and effort and a hint of patience, me and my wife believed that we could do just that.  The house itself, was a good place for us to start, we did not have much to spend on a house but we didn't want something that we would stick our every last penny in in-order to make it "ours".

Me and my wife had been looking at houses that ranged from 80,000 up to the 105,000 mark (we were told that that was the tipping point of houses in the area from being fall-apart to move-in-livable.) Many of the homes we looked at had some work to be done, whether it was a bathroom that needed to be redone, or the bedrooms had the smell of cat and the carpets would have to be replaced.

We were looking for a house that had "good bones" so to say, structurally clean, good wiring and plumbing, and no signs of walls pushing in or termite damage, but just needed some personal touch and paint. This is a list I think that most people have when looking for a house, but don't always get all the options. What it came down to is we were looking at foreclosures (then the baggage that could come with them). We get to that later.

When looking for a house it was important to us to have a large living room (because we love to host people all the time), and a kitchen that did not cut off us from the world outside the kitchen. And of course a garage for me to tinker in :) . Its good to set some standards, and then keep those but be willing to compromise if the need arises while looking at houses. Odds are there is a house out there for everyone, one may see 5-30 houses before they find one they even like; We were told the average number of houses that first time buyers will look at is 7.... we looked at 11 of them, but only seriously considered two. What happened for us is as we saw houses we complied things about them we liked and didn't like; then took the like list and ordered it into priority. That was what had to be in our house, and what would be nice but not necessary.

Next is the fun part --making it ours--