Wow everyone - thanks for the input. Oddjob, I don't think I'll be living next to GOGAR. I doubt I can keep any property I get up to his expectations
My wife and I are still in CA - trying to line up an official move before year's end (or at least have a CO address for all intents and purposes).
We're looking at properties every night. We've refined our price range to $200-$300k and are looking all over:
- Broomfield
- Erie
- Federal Heights
- Frederick
- Lafayette
- Longmont
- Northglen
- Westminster
Unfortunately moving from SoCal to CO will pretty much drain any and all savings we have. We're expecting the cost to be $9000 (including our $3k lease-break fee - thanks Irvine Company Extortionists). If we can save that we'll be in a much better place. We have to look at getting 4 vehicles + all our crap out there.
I've been renting for 10 years, the last 2.5 living with my (now) wife. We're spending almost $1900/month here. If we can get into a decent $0-down loan and just scrounge together any 'earnest money' needed we can do fine. We would just put the difference of what we were paying in rent towards the principle.
I've seen the term "PMI" used all over - what exactly is that? I know there's the Principle (price of the home), Interest (profit for the bank), APR and PMI, then taxes, then HOAs (if necessary). So many other items I'm probably missing.
There's also a big difference between New vs. Pre-Owned when it comes to homes. MANY good examples on the market in the 5-10 year-old range. New homes have a lot of 'premiums' attached to the price tag but the added benefits of
everything being new and additions can be tacked on easily.
Pre-Owned (as stated above) run risks of items being old/worn and inspection costs, appraisal costs, escrow, etc etc etc. It makes me wonder why someone would buy a used home for these prices? My wife and I have the added benefit of keeping our 'California' levels of pay when moving here which helps our buying power.
TLDR version:
- We have good credit (740s-760s)
- We have $0 saved up
- We have goo debt:income ratio (20%)
- No idea what hidden costs there are
- We really like the area.
- Timeline is Q1.5 2014