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stevenfrijoles t1_ivupe6y wrote

The best way to find houses is to give your criteria to a realtor and have them sign you up for MLS listing emails. It's free, although it does involve finding a realtor first. (But that should be your focus anyway.) Sites like Zillow (redfin is better in my opinion) sometimes have outdated or wrong info.

You could also start going to open houses, speaking to realtors there and see who gives you good/knowledgeable vibes.

As for a down payment, there are options that exist outside of the 20% down, like FHA loans or an 80-10-10 loan. Especially with that household income.

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vc1914 t1_ivuqeph wrote

Zillow doesn’t update for a few days. I used NJMLS.com to find my home. We saw the house and had our offer accepted before Zillow even had it on their site.

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Ghost_of_P34 t1_ivuppc3 wrote

If school for kids is a factor, then Princeton, West Windsor, Plainsboro are your best bets (and towns that feed into any of those districts... Cranbury?

If school is not a factor, then avoid those towns due to high property taxes. Or any town with high property taxes.

If you don't want to deal with the house itself and are looking for more of a starter type home, consider a condo/townhouse. Should be cheaper, less to do, and nice way to build up equity. Wife and I did that before moving to a house in the area.

Generally, you need to put down 20%, so if you have 65k total, you are looking at homes in the 300-325 range. Correct?

Most house listings are fed to various sites by NJ's central real estate data base. I don't have any specific realtor recommendations, but I guess any of the better reviewed realtors on Zillow or Realtor.com should be ok. I'm sure someone will recommend a specific individual or firm.

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[deleted] OP t1_ivuqa03 wrote

[deleted]

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ansky201 t1_ivv3mgt wrote

If you can't put down the full 20% you may qualify for an FHA loan. With an FHA loan you put down less than the 20% and the bank charges you mortgage insurance (PMI). With my FHA loan many years ago it worked out to about $150/month in mortgage insurance. Once you start making your mortgage payments and reach the 20% threshold the bank can remove the mortgage insurance. I recommend paying extra money towards your loan each month so the mortgage insurance will go away sooner. It will all depend on the specifics of your lender and your loan.

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infl1ct1on t1_ivxtch4 wrote

Just as a heads up (I also have FHA loan), FHA loans have MIP not PMI. If your initial down payment is <10%, the MIP can not be removed unless refinanced to a non-FHA loan. If your initial down payment is >10%, MIP falls off after 11 years. There is no 20% rule on an FHA loan like there is on conventional. However, I still strongly recommend FHA because the MIP really isn't that high, just note it can't be removed unless you refinance.

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zeus7482 t1_ivxafnh wrote

Checkout Montgomery twp (https://www.montgomerynj.gov) has great schools, dedicated to preserve open space. Some town are literally next to Princeton.

10% down is good to start. You might need a PMI but you can remove it in as little as 5 years just by paying one extra payment a year.

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jjb89 t1_ivympim wrote

am I reading this right and your salaries together are 400k a year? amd you "don't have much to put down only 65k"? lol

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