Am I being realistic? On the great home hunt for McKinney/Allen/Frisco etc (Dallas: rentals, mortgage)

[MobiusStrip]

Originally Posted by richard88

Yes, those are the area I've targetting too. I rarely see any house below $270k in Allen Frisco around for more than one week i.e. after the weekend bidding war. There might be some in the northern part of McKinney. Good luck !

Since you are ahead of me, can you tell me the outcome of a typical bidding war? How much over are these houses going for in your experience? :/

[richard88]

Originally Posted by MobiusStrip

Since you are ahead of me, can you tell me the outcome of a typical bidding war? How much over are these houses going for in your experience? :/

It really depends on your research and how badly you want the house. For example, some seller really price it high, like $250 for 1700 sqft in Frisco (it's not even in Liberty High or close to 5 Billion Mile), it is possible it might past the weekend and you offer lower. But it still depends on the seller if he is willing to sell or not. It's like a gamble in the Casio.

[MobiusStrip]

Update: my middle FICO (mortgage) is now 633. I have some ancient collections falling off in November, supposedly, which should improve my scores a bit more. I have realized I had better get my price range to stretch to 230-240k. But as I said in another more recent thread, best I can manage right now is a 5% down payment. And forget cash on hand if a house sells for over the appraised price! It is very hard to continue living where we do due to very active drug dealers both across the street and one block over, an abandoned house next door, and a truly mentally unbalanced woman at the end of the (very short) block. I actually live in a nice almost new little house with very low rent and moving to my target area and renting will be painful as well as limiting my target area to those houses zoned for the same elementary school (not really negotiable as my son would struggle with repeated school moves). Is there any way in hell I can do this? Will someone have mercy on me and somehow help me make this work? I do not have anyone to borrow from.


My options seem to be...


1) stay in this god-forsaken hell hole till I have a 20% down payment saved up. Or at least 5% plus closing costs plus difference between selling and appraised prices.
2) move and live in a small apartment in a desirable district and deal with my housing options being restricted to those zoned for same schools. Again...save 20%? (gack). Suffer miserably in cramped quarters.
3) move to a smaller town further outside DFW where the market is not so hot and pray I can continue working from home. Deal with inferior district for my utterly brilliant children. Take comfort in their future as valedictorians.
4) give up on DFW altogether? Explore Austin? Or it's futile there too?
5) pray that my wise investments in scratchers finally pay off and my money problems are behind me.
6) have faith it's going to work and keep working toward buying in Frisco/Prosper/Wylie districts this summer or fall at the latest even with my pathetic 5% down payment.


This is seriously no fun.

[WorldKlas]

As long as you convince yourself that the northern burbs are your only acceptable options, I don't see a solution for you.

However, if you come to accept that there are perfectly fine schools in Midlothian, Mansfield and Southwest Arlington, you budget would work, just one example

3442 Newgate St, Midlothian, TX 76065 - Home For Sale and Real Estate Listing - realtor.com®

[MobiusStrip]

The jobs that suit my skill set are in Plano. As a single mom, I have no interest in a long commute. And I want to keep the trek back to wichita falls to see my mother in the nursing home on the shorter side.

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by MobiusStrip

My options seem to be...

1) stay in this god-forsaken hell hole till I have a 20% down payment saved up. Or at least 5% plus closing costs plus difference between selling and appraised prices.

You don't necessarily have to save 20% but I would definitely keep saving until you have 5% down + closing costs + MINIMUM 3 months living expenses (mortgage, food, bills, cars, etc- essentials) saved up. In previous threads you have mentioned how much consumption spending you do on your kids, if you tighten your belt this summer it shouldn't be that hard for someone with a $100k salary to save $18-20k in closing costs & emergency fund.

Originally Posted by MobiusStrip

2) move and live in a small apartment in a desirable district and deal with my housing options being restricted to those zoned for same schools. Again...save 20%? (gack). Suffer miserably in cramped quarters.

I think this is a really good option for you. Again, you don't have to save the full 20% - though if your credit score keeps improving while you save, it could really help lower your eventual mortgage payments. IMO, you are not financially ready to buy and any bank loaning you a mortgage is taking a pretty big risk. Renting is not the end of the world.

I would think you'd rather "suffer miserably" in cramped quarters living in a safer city with excellent schools and no drug dealers on your block than where you live today.

Originally Posted by MobiusStrip

3) move to a smaller town further outside DFW where the market is not so hot and pray I can continue working from home. Deal with inferior district for my utterly brilliant children. Take comfort in their future as valedictorians.

If your children really are "utterly brilliant", check out the Grand Prairie School for the Highly Gifted mentioned in another thread. Grand Prairie's cost of living is a helluva lot cheaper than the hot northern suburbs you're fixated on. Arlington Martin's zone is also very well regarded with recent grads matriculating at Stanford, Cornell, and UT Business Honors. Median home prices in both Grand Prairie and Arlington Martin's zone are around $175k.

You also could look at school districts in smaller towns and less "hot" suburbs that are highly regarded:
Pottsboro, Mansfield, Sherman, and parts of Denton are worth a look. All have SAT scores equal to or above the lowest performing district on your list. Top graduates from these schools matriculate at Georgetown, NYU, Harvard, USC, Carnegie Mellon, Yale, Naval Academy, etc.

Originally Posted by MobiusStrip

4) give up on DFW altogether? Explore Austin? Or it's futile there too?

Austin is even more expensive than Dallas.

Originally Posted by MobiusStrip

5) pray that my wise investments in scratchers finally pay off and my money problems are behind me.

Hope is not a plan.

Originally Posted by MobiusStrip

6) have faith it's going to work and keep working toward buying in Frisco/Prosper/Wylie districts this summer or fall at the latest even with my pathetic 5% down payment.

It will work out, but you're probably going to need to focus on other parts of the metroplex. I wouldn't call Wylie's schools fantastic, so if you're ok with Wylie, check out less expensive places like Arlington or Mansfield (very good publics but not Plano level). And keep saving and repairing your credit. Life is not a race; you'll get a house when you're really ready for one.

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by MobiusStrip

The jobs that suit my skill set are in Plano. As a single mom, I have no interest in a long commute. And I want to keep the trek back to wichita falls to see my mother in the nursing home on the shorter side.

Really, There are NO jobs that fit your skillset in Irving/ Las Colinas, downtown/uptown Dallas, Fort Worth, Southlake, etc?? I'm in a pretty niche field as there are fewer than 10 companies in my industry in DFW; however the ones that are here are spread out all over the metroplex.

[MurphyPl1]

Originally Posted by MobiusStrip

Update: my middle FICO (mortgage) is now 633. I have some ancient collections falling off in November, supposedly, which should improve my scores a bit more. I have realized I had better get my price range to stretch to 230-240k. But as I said in another more recent thread, best I can manage right now is a 5% down payment. And forget cash on hand if a house sells for over the appraised price! It is very hard to continue living where we do due to very active drug dealers both across the street and one block over, an abandoned house next door, and a truly mentally unbalanced woman at the end of the (very short) block. I actually live in a nice almost new little house with very low rent and moving to my target area and renting will be painful as well as limiting my target area to those houses zoned for the same elementary school (not really negotiable as my son would struggle with repeated school moves). Is there any way in hell I can do this? Will someone have mercy on me and somehow help me make this work? I do not have anyone to borrow from.


My options seem to be...


1) stay in this god-forsaken hell hole till I have a 20% down payment saved up. Or at least 5% plus closing costs plus difference between selling and appraised prices.
2) move and live in a small apartment in a desirable district and deal with my housing options being restricted to those zoned for same schools. Again...save 20%? (gack). Suffer miserably in cramped quarters.
3) move to a smaller town further outside DFW where the market is not so hot and pray I can continue working from home. Deal with inferior district for my utterly brilliant children. Take comfort in their future as valedictorians.
4) give up on DFW altogether? Explore Austin? Or it's futile there too?
5) pray that my wise investments in scratchers finally pay off and my money problems are behind me.
6) have faith it's going to work and keep working toward buying in Frisco/Prosper/Wylie districts this summer or fall at the latest even with my pathetic 5% down payment.


This is seriously no fun.

Oh! Well played! This was all a joke. You had us going for quite a while.

[MobiusStrip]

Originally Posted by MurphyPl1

Oh! Well played! This was all a joke. You had us going for quite a while.

Huh? It's not a joke. Even if I find a bit of humor here or there, it's no joke. It's my life. It's my kids playing in my backyard while drug deals go on across the street. It's my house by the abandoned one that attracts ferals and the pungent aroma of their urine wafts over on summer days. It's my struggles since my kids arrived at 25 weeks to rebuild my credit after over a year unemployed. It may be a joke to you but to me, it is my life. Thanks a lot.

[Annikan]

I think you can do 2, 3, or 6. You can totally move to a small apartment for a couple of years to continue saving. Or you can move a bit further north where your money goes a little further. Or you can continue looking to buy right now.

We live in a super hot market area (just outside Manhattan), and there are bidding wars and crazy contingencies here and even though we were putting 25% down, with great credit we had to bid on almost 10 places before we got lucky and got one. There were too many cash offers, or people willing to forgo inspections. We were just patient and kept plugging along. We didn't actually move until 3 days before I had a baby--so, not ideal but we just rolled with the uncertainty. We had already given up our lease on our apartment and had to be out, and we were prepared to go to a hotel with a newborn if the closing was delayed.

Also, we have 2 kids and we live in a 2 bedroom. I'm sure you'd consider it unbearably small, but that's life for people in the NYC area and apartments here are going for $700+/sq foot, so we feel pretty lucky to even afford 2 bedrooms. It's all in your mentality.