Missy

Stephanie; the job is located off of Northpoint Drive.

Jeremy; thanks you also. Everyone has given me such great information and has helped allot. We have been looking into maybe Cypress. Is this area ok?
As soon as we know for sure on the job situation, I'll know more then. - Mon Oct 20 2008, 08:22

That is the good thing about HOA's by keeping the bad eggs out. My concern is having to ask permission to do something with my yard or having an outbuilding etc. I like to grow allot of my own veggies. We also have a 40ft motorhome that we would need to keep at home. I know some HOA's don't allow this. Some have stated that the fee's can go up each year. Is this true also? Maybe I'm old school and like the feeling of really owning my own property. Not saying I'm old :)
But is what I mentioned above a problem with many of the HOA's? - Thu Oct 16 2008, 12:48

I thank all of you for your inputs. We are looking at the Northwest/West side of Houston. I'd like to keep the commute time to under an hour. Our price range is up to $450,000.00. We don't really want an older home maybe built from 1990 on. We don't have to worry about schools as our children are grown. We don't want one with HOA's. But from what I've seen is all with HOA's. Is it going to be hard to find something without HOA's?
Thanks again for your help. We moved to Tennessee blinded by what people here were sugar coating and not completely honest so we're trying to do all the homework we can this time around because we want to find a place where we can call home. - Thu Oct 16 2008, 11:57

Luke, you have my utmost respect and have given so many people so much useful information on here. Even though we are not going to stay in Nashville, a few of our friends are thinking about staying and waiting to see what the housing market does. And they are getting great information on here from you. They had a couple of people tell them the market is just right here. But one of their realtors were up front with them and told them to hold off. Apparently this realtor went into her account on Realtracs and showed them what houses sold for for the last several years. She even gave them a print out of some of the homes in the area they are looking at and they showed it to me. The prices were very reasonable around 2006. I'm sure what she did was not right as far as where a Realtor stands and don't know why she did it for them. I'm just a third party.
I'm not a pro on real estate myself; but I did some homework also. We could have bought a house 50 miles from Nashville that was reasonably priced but that was a bit too far for us to drive for work. But then again we wanted a house with a couple acres of land also.
Thanks again so much Luke. Please keep these people up to date on what you find out while your still resesarching. They do trust you. They don't post here, not sure why.
Good luck Luke. I feel your very smart to wait also. - Wed Oct 15 2008, 11:01

It's alright Sharon. I can understand your frustration as well. I know your in a situation also by having to show potential buyers property that are not serious about buying. With gas prices the way they are, that's not right. In the past when we were looking for a home; we would go look at it first to make sure it was in an area we liked and also the surrounding area. If we were really interested that's when we'd call our Realtor. We couldn't see bothering her if we didn't like the area once we got there to see inside the house. That was a waste of her time. Because we understood she had other clients and also not wanting to waste her time.

Good luck to you too and hopefully this economy will soon get better. I know it's especially hard on Realtors as I have several really good friends that are in your situation. - Sat Oct 4 2008, 06:47

Sharon, I don't think Luke is wanting to bicker about this. He's just being smart before buying during these times we're in now. So many buyers now are doing their homework to make sure they are not too hasty in buying a home too soon if it is over priced. So many people that I know in California, Tennessee, Louisiana, Ohio, Maryland etc are being very careful now. They don't want to buy a home just for it to depreciate after they purchase.
As far as your statement about Californians being rude, I never saw that. And I've lived in several places over my lifetime. There are rude people everywhere. And I guess it's how some come across with others.
Yes; I am in the process of going back to California as we took a huge paycut to come to Tennessee. Also our health ins, veh. ins etc went up in Tennessee. Which surprised us but we were ok with it. We love the countryside here. But we are not going to pay more than what a house is worth. We were devestated that it didn't work out here.
But I commend Luke for hanging in there and not jumping in too fast. A home is an investment that you don't want to loose equity within the first several month's of owning it. Luke has my utmost respect and has helped so many doing the same thing he is. Waiting. I can count up to about 20 potential buyers here that are renting and will continue renting until they see what the economy is going to do also.
Keep up the good work Luke. - Fri Oct 3 2008, 13:27

Luke; just thought I'd tell you where my husband and I stand. We moved here a year ago and the same houses we looked at then are still out there for sale. To us; the housing market here in Nashville is way overpriced. We moved here from California hoping to settle in with a nice home with a few acres of land. But we are not going to buy a house when it's over priced. It would be different if there was allot here in Nashville to do. I could understand the prices then. We were looking to spend around $400,000.00. But we WILL not spend that much on an old house. We are in the process of moving back to California. Brand new homes with land is cheaper there than here. And California has way more to offer in wages and things to do. And you can't get any better weather. We were really dissapointed in Nashville. It's like Nashville doesn't know there was a housing crisis. So we wasted a year of our time here. Good luck and I hope you can have better house hunting than we did. We felt like we were beating our heads against walls trying to work numbers with these people. $5,000.00 was the most anyone would come off their price. - Sun Aug 24 2008, 20:02