Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Shell----How NOT to buy a house

I'm sorry it didn't work out. I know you're disappointed, but it sounds like you made the right decision. You two have a very level head on your shoulders. Good for you for crunching the numbers and using some restraint! Most couples your age would've just bought it ---and worried about the cost later.

When my husband and I bought our first house, we had NO idea what we were doing. We did all the wrong things---we bought on a whim, when interest rates were sky high, in a new subdivision where the developer later went bankrupt. To top that off, the economy in that area plummented, every house on the block went up for sale, and my husband lost his job. We had to take a big loss on the house---or face foreclosure. We bit the bullet and took a loss on it(so as not to ruin our financial record), but it took us YEARS to financially recover from it. Boy, what a hard lesson that was for us to learn!

(Oh, I almost forgot. The septic system didn't work and we had no recourse since the developer was out of business. So we paid out of our pockets to have that redone.)

But what we did learn was----never buy on a whim, check out the neighborhood (builder, developer, etc.) thoroughly, and LOCATION is everything!

To make matters worse, several years later, we had it happen to us AGAIN. (We're slow learners!) We picked out a lot in a new subdivision and built a beautiful house. After about half the lots had been developed, the developer sold the remaining lots to a builder who put up "track" houses. So here we had a custom house surrounded by cheaper homes! A company transfer saved us from a big loss (just in the nick of time), but our friends who stayed were not so fortunate.

Needless to say, as a result, neither one of us will even look at a house that has an empty lot anywhere near it (and we never take a realtor's word when they comment on what's going in around the house!) We only buy in the MIDDLE of a very ESTABLISHED neighborhood so that we know what is surrounding our home. We don't want any surprises!

Some very unfortunate residents here are now facing the construction of a Super Wal-Mart behind their very upscale neighborhood. The empty land was zoned residential when they moved in, but the county has now rezoned it commercial.

Just the other night, at a Fourth of July party, we listened to couples discuss buying houses as an investment (for rental property) because as they said, "real estate values ALWAYS go up!" My husband said to me on the way home, "Thank goodness we went through what we did because we learned that that's not always the case."

I didn't mean to write a book on the subject of real estate, but I hope maybe this might help someone AVOID the mistakes we made.

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