Your personal experience buying a house on Long Island? The time it took?

[OhBeeHave]

Several months of looking for the POS that met our criteria. 4 months to close from the date our offer was accepted because the owner had to evict a deadbeat tenant.

[lubby]

Reason it took us three months to close was because our home was bought by a contractor who decided to "Flip" it and sell it. It was a foreclosure that the contractor bought. The kitchen had not been finished or the bathroom, plus we wanted some additional stuff done, like a spot for a dishwasher in the kitchen.

[James1202]

Originally Posted by ovi8

LIQuest is not asking contract to close time so not sure why people are indicating that only. Or maybe he will ask in another thread. !!!

For us we were looking while our house was put on the market. After we sold we were still looking for like 3 months (while staying with my parents nearby). Total time about 5 months looking. While we were looking for larger houses (graduating from a starter house), we were open to the idea of building up so even ranches were on the list - and we happened to find one that we did up since the 2-story homes in our price range were mostly dated. Wide range of homes, still took a while. Not sure how inventory looks these days, that was about 5 years ago.

LOL. You noticed that, too?

We searched for 2 yrs. (about 6mos./yr.).

- We changed our search criteria after the first "selling season" as we gave up finding the house for which were looking: pre-1930 on, at least, 0.5 flat acre, north of the LIE, under $600K, between Roslyn and Stony Brook.

- The second year we found the smallest, least improved, fixer upper, on 0.5 flat acre, north of the LIE, under $400K, between the Nassau-Suffolk border and Stony Brook, and spent $200K making it into the house we wanted.

- From seeing the house to closing was about 4 wks. (we didn't want to close until we knew the buyers of our house were going to get their financing).

[Nypafl4u]

Too many factors involved to make definitive time frame. It really depends on the area you like, your budget and particular needs in a house. You can get lucky and find it in one day or it can take months or years. If you have your budget and financing in place, it really boils down to having a good realtor and keeping a sharp eye on what comes up on the market as it reaches. Use the various web sites like realtor.com homes.com and Zillow to help. If your realtor is good, they will know quickly what type of home you want and bring them to your attention quickly. Other than that, once you find the right house, any good financial institute should have you closed in about 4-6 weeks if you all your statements and financials are in good order and readily accessible.