We started to pine after a house of our own shortly after moving to our current place, cute, but temporary and somewhat tight apartment in Westchester County, New York. However due to some uncertainty to my job situation (possibility of a major distance move), we had to wait it out. Thanks to that we had an opportunity to compare what we want to the real world, and carefully consider, plan and research our future house purchase.
That was slightly over two years ago. During this time we had ample time to among other things:
- Narrow down the area we want to live in
- Figure how much of a house we can afford in chosen neighborhoods
- Budget our day to day finances around our target house price range
- Educate ourselves (while trying no to go insane) on basics of credit, mortgages, and house buying
- Perform a metric ton of driveby’s in our target areas.