Buying A House During A Pandemic
House hunting in any circumstance is a daunting task, but during a pandemic maybe the odds were a little better so I thought. It’s been a goal of mine to own my own house, but I never would have thought the right timing for me to buy a place was during a pandemic. Housing prices were still on the rise, but back in October 2020 I was determined to find something suitable for me. I didn’t want to have to rent or live with my parents; I wanted my own property. Now the question was how do I go about buying a house.
Here’s some tips I had along the journey.
- Find a great real estate agent and mortgage team
You need to find someone or a team that will represent you and be in your corner. This is step #1 in the house buying process. I knew so many people in real estate that it was so hard to choose. Ultimately, I went with Re/MAX on the Market because of my relationship with Liz Powell. Liz and I met at a Rotary of Seattle meeting and instantly hit it off. We became good friends back in 2018 and I always told her when the timing is right I wanted her to help me find my house. Fast forward 2 years later she helped me find my house in just 3 months!
Once you find a real estate agent, you need to find a good broker. I wanted a broker who worked well with my agent so I asked Liz who do you recommend. She recommended a couple brokers and I met with all of them to see who meshed the best with me. Enter Shawn White from PRMI; she fit my personality and our first conversation was so much fun. And from there I knew I had my team ready to go.
From there Liz helped me narrow down my search, finding new houses that I could list pros and cons on, set up open houses/private showings for us to go on…We went on so many house tours before finding the right one! While Shawn helped me narrow down financially what I could afford, what mortgage interest rates I was looking at, and gathering my application to apply for my house loan.
2. Know your budget
Budgeting for a house is crucial. You have to be able to make your mortgage payments on time, but also think of the other expenses you will have aside from just a mortgage. Think about if your property will have a HOA due monthly, electricity/gas charges, water/sewer charges, garbage, security, cell phone bill and internet. Depending on the neighborhood these price points will vary, but take an average. Once you take an average of these necessities, plus your total mortgage look at what other expenses you’ll have that aren’t as necessary. Some of these include subscription services (Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, etc), cable, gas for the car, food, and entertainment. Once you know what your take home pay is every month subtract this estimate and then you can see what mortgage levels are within your range. This will help you know what price points of houses you can look at and how much you will have to put down.
For me, being a single person buying a house I really had to budget carefully and make sure I could really afford up to certain mortgage price point. Look at your after tax take home pay — you know you cannot go above that. Then factor food, entertainment, utilities (estimate at least $800-$1100).
3. What location do you want to live in?
Location is everything and is a key component of picking a house. You can love a house inside and out but hate it’s location. Where do you want to live? Do you want to be close to family, work, transit, mountains, waterfront, suburb, city, more land, but further away…etc. Really hone in on different neighborhoods — I wanted eastside, close enough to family, but far enough away, close to freeway access, and transit. That left me looking towards New Castle, Renton, Issaquah, Maple Valley, Kent, Covington, and Auburn. Still a massive search area…. so utilize the Zillow or Redfin app to help hone in on neighborhoods. Look at crime rate, school zones, on main roads vs dead ends…
4. Figure out what you are willing to compromise
During this time in order for me to find a place I needed to come to terms with a couple of things. If I wanted location I needed to possibly compromise on size of the house and number of bedrooms. I was constantly looking for 3 or 4 bedrooms, but switched my search to 2 or 3 instead. I also told myself I need the basics, I don’t need everything to be upgraded exactly how I want; that’s what DIY home projects are for — so I compromised and said I don’t absolutely need an island countertop in my kitchen. The things I wasn’t willing to compromise: location, safety around neighborhood (I run a lot), decent size kitchen, good sized master bedroom and bathroom, and garage.
When I refined my search I was able to narrow down on a couple of houses that fit my criteria. Went to go tour house after house and things were good, but still wasn’t getting the gut feeling that, that was the one. I did put offers in on a couple of others back in November and boy am I glad that those didn’t go through. And then finally I found the house I ended up buying. I toured it and I knew it was the one. It was the perfect size, the spacing and layout of the house was perfect, the location was amazing and exactly where I wanted to be. Because the housing market was still pretty crazy, Liz and I strategized on the best way to win the offer since this one I loved so much. I did a pre-inspection of course and basically waived everything I could aside from the financial contingency. I wrote a letter to the seller explaining how much I loved the house and I wanted to grow my career, life, and family someday here. And to my surprise we won the bid! I know that not every bid ends like this, but I’m so lucky I was able to get in when I did.
I’m incredibly thankful for my real estate and mortgage broker teams and my family for pushing me, going through this process with me, and always encouraging me through it when I had so many doubts. Everything always has a way of working itself out!
