ANY ADVICE??????

HI...Hubby and I are planning to start house hunting in spring '04 and dont know where to begin...i need advice from you gals on everything from soup to nuts...what questions to ask...what to look for, what not to look for...we're pretty sure we want to look in suffolk cty, probably around plainview, northport, kings park, deer park, smithtown areas...not further than that...dont know anything about the school districts either...any advice at all would be greatly appreciated.!! Thanks ladies..!

just FYI...plainview is in nassau...huntington separates it from northport...


most of the huntington area is great...i grew up there and there are quite a few great school districts to choose from...I went to Harborfields which was always highly ranked...and is greenlawn and centerport. Northport is a great district...as is kings park...you may also want to consider Elwood district and commack.

the next thing you should do is figure out how much you can reasonably spend...remember to also include insurance and property taxes into that equation...a lot of people find mortgage counselors helpful....it also helps to be preapproved while looking...your bid will more likely be accepted over someone who is not approved...

you should also think of what you want in the house...is the kitchen important...a backyard..a garage...a basement...the style...# of bedrooms...etc...what are you willing to live without...what can you not live without...how much work are you willing to do to the house (keep that in mind when bidding as well...)


since you are not looking right now...you could check out a few sites like to see whats out there:
mlsli
or
realtor.com

Wow...what a great help in such a small response...thank you, thank you, thank you.. i will def check out those links...

i was going to send the same websites (thats what i am uing now ) the websites also have a morgage calculator and info on the school dists. I grew up in Commack but the homes here are crazy $$$ it depends on what you have to spend. if you qualify for sonny mae it has a 4.25%interest rate instead of the 6.0% youll find elsewhere. and most importantly remember that the realator works for the home owners not the buyers they almost always lie so you bid more $$$ on a home and tell you that someone else is looking at it ---dont feel pressured ...they also tend to show you a crappy home first so the ok home looks better ... but also look in the Sundays and Fridays newspaper -newsday for new listing most of the time the stuff on the website is already sold (been there)
Good luck and dont rush into being pressured sachem, holbrook, schools, and nesconsent are good schools too.
also always check out the house at night make sure that there are no bad ass kids hanging around the area. Lastly make sure the neighbors keep up there homes that way property values will go up.

HAve a handy-dandy little notebook with you to take notes on ANYTHING and EVERYTHING about each home you look at. IT was VERY helpful for me later on, after a full day of looking at 10 homes, we'd forget which one had the nice kitchen or the horrid backyard

ALso, write down anything the sellers tell you about the house, for instance the roof (How old it is), any work done on the house, anything at all... jot it all down!

Good luck!
there are tons of posts on this, im sure if you do a search you'll get some more info