Looking to buy a house (Raleigh: sale, 2009, apartment)

[needcaffeine]

So...after an eternity of renting, I've decided I'm going to buy a house. The first step was to download a Home Ownership Expense Calculator from Vertex42 (I love their stuff) and figure out what I could afford. Then, I opened a savings account over at Coastal Federal Credit Union, then applied for a pre-approval for a home loan to see if I'd qualify. In a previous life, some 5 years ago when I was still in college, I did some bad things with my credit cards and have worked really hard to build my credit since (having a job helps). Amazingly enough, I qualified,. I went and talked to a realtor this morning, and am now officially looking for a house to buy. EXCITING! I just wanted to share that.

However, there is one thing that concerns me. I found a house on E Davie St in downtown Raleigh. Some developer bought the property for really cheap and completely gutted and redid everything so it looks splendid inside and out. The problem is that I drove by there and I see a couple boarded up houses. I also looked at the property on the Raleigh Crime Data map and I see a homicide from 1/20 and a motor vehicle theft from 1/7. What the heck. Other than what I see on the map, can anyone tell me anything about that neighborhood? I don't know if I should go with this. Besides, when I take my fiancée over to the neighborhood later tonight to look at it, she's going to freak out at the boarded up houses anyway.

Any other advice for a first time home buyer?

[Babytarheelz]

Well, I do hear there's a lot of crime out that way. While they can't help you research crime, your Realtor should really guide you as far as what's going on with the other boarded up houses and what not. That's their job. You definitely don't have to do the legwork alone!

Congrats on the new adventure!

[needcaffeine]

Oh great, I just found out what the incident was: Random robbery, 5 teens arrested

There's no way in hell that we'll move there now

My realtor told me that they legally cannot make subjective statements like "that is a bad neighborhood", but they can advise me to check the crime stats and ask for a police report, etc. Which is a-okay with me. But yeah, I should ask about what's going on with the other boarded up houses.

[Francois]

"East" anything, downtown, is something you'd want to take a long look at before considering.

[itscolduphere]

Consider what your intuition (gut) tells you. Sit down somewhere quiet, get rid of distractions, think about the house, and ask yourself if it feels all warm and fuzzy to go through with it. I do this now for a lot of things and it seems to have worked and continues to work for me.

[miamiblue]

Originally Posted by needcaffeine

So...after an eternity of renting, I've decided I'm going to buy a house. The first step was to download a Home Ownership Expense Calculator from Vertex42 (I love their stuff) and figure out what I could afford. Then, I opened a savings account over at Coastal Federal Credit Union, then applied for a pre-approval for a home loan to see if I'd qualify. In a previous life, some 5 years ago when I was still in college, I did some bad things with my credit cards and have worked really hard to build my credit since (having a job helps).. I went and talked to a realtor this morning, and am now officially looking for a house to buy. EXCITING! I just wanted to share that.

However, there is one thing that concerns me. I found a house on E Davie St in downtown Raleigh. Some developer bought the property for really cheap and completely gutted and redid everything so it looks splendid inside and out. The problem is that I drove by there and I see a couple boarded up houses. I also looked at the property on the Raleigh Crime Data map and I see a homicide from 1/20 and a motor vehicle theft from 1/7. What the heck. Other than what I see on the map, can anyone tell me anything about that neighborhood? I don't know if I should go with this. Besides, when I take my fiancée over to the neighborhood later tonight to look at it, she's going to freak out at the boarded up houses anyway.

Any other advice for a first time home buyer?

I am kind of in your same situation and have also seen the listing for the house on E Davie, as well as one on Freeman that looks awesome, but I think they are asking wayyy too much for (over $200k ). About a year ago I went to an open house at a house not too far away on the 800 block of Hargett. It was the same situation, where someone completely rehabbed the house and it was lovely. On my way there, I took a wrong turn onto a cul de sac just around the corner, and a police officer was just sitting in the cul de sac and flagged me down when he saw me turning around, obviously not where I meant to be. He offered to escort me to the open house, which was only literally around the corner. Maybe it was the fact that I was a young female driving through all by myself, but I thought this was odd, considering it was broad daylight, the middle of the afternoon.

Anyway, that area of downtown is very hit and miss. Renovations are popping up all around there, but you have to be willing to be a big time pioneer to buy into that area right now, IMHO. Yes, some people are going to get in on the cheap right now and probably be sitting on gold mines in a few years. I personally would love to be an active part of helping to improve a crime-ridden community and would really love to fix up a house that is begging for someone to appreciate it, but I just don't think that area is far enough along yet for a young, single female such as myself. There are a lot of absentee landlords in this area, and many just let houses sit boarded up until the city condemns them (very sad, lots of historic architecture in that area going to waste).

You might want to try looking in the Longview and Lockwood neighborhoods if you want to be close to downtown, but under $200k. A friend of mine lives off of Glascock and Marlborough, and says that more young professionals are buying into that neighborhood because it is affordable and in close proximity to downtown, but has less crime and more owner-occupied properties than east downtown. I have heard a few others on this forum mention these areas as well.

[gibbie99]

We just bought our first home. Here's my two cents. Go to the neighborhood around dinner time, ie 6 or 7pm nowadays, and get a feel for it. Are kids out? Anything going on? Dead silence? In our neighborhood, there are kids running around, playing basketball, baseball, and what not.

What about the neighbors? Gang bangers? Crackheads?

Figure out what lifestyle works best for you. A friend of mine got a 3 story condo-style home in the middle of downtown Houston. Not the most friendly place, and not what i would look for. But they have great views, not much crime apparently, and a good deal on a nice looking home. Another friend got a dirt-cheap place also downtown, but this was a 50 year old property, in a downright spooky neighborhood. No way i'd live there.

Consider a townhome in a nice part of town, or a condo. I had a condo for 8 years and it was overall a good experience. The problem being for us was downstairs neighbors you can't do much about; plus constant turnover, high crime, etc. Its to be expected in certain parts of any town.

I would def. stay away from any place with homocides, rapes, assaults. Our really nice neighborhood, every once in a while, gets robbed. Something like 40 robberies within the last year in a 1 mi diameter area. Not exactly low crime, but it does feel pretty safe.

The only way you are going to get rid of crime is to live very far away from a city center.

Overall i would def. keep on like you are doing, really scope the place out at different times of day and night, and feel the neighborhood out. Once you have a number you can spend, and a area of the city, then you go look at houses, lots and lots in this market. You may be in a rush, but try not to compromise. We were rushed because we had only a 3 month apartment lease, and we ended up going down to the wire finding a nice home. However I'm so glad we waited and didn't settle on a just decent house; we absolutely love our house.

Make a list of features that are really important for you. For us it was a private backyard, dual vanities, big shower, nice breakfast nook, and a kitchen island was a wonderful bonus. The house we ended up getting had all of this.

Remember prices are dropping all the time, and things are negotiable. The house we have now was overpriced (many are), and we got a healthy amount reduced. This is very important because when you turn around and try to sell, the profit you make or dont make is dependant on the sale price. If you bought too high, its going to be very difficult financially to sell for lower than you bought. The market is going down, so its possible that what you buy now may be 5-10% lower priced in a year or two. Its also possible that it will increase in value. Nothing is certain.

Don't buy a property because you plan to make money off it; do it because its a home.

[needcaffeine]

Originally Posted by miamiblue

Anyway, that area of downtown is very hit and miss. Renovations are popping up all around there, but you have to be willing to be a big time pioneer to buy into that area right now, IMHO. Yes, some people are going to get in on the cheap right now and probably be sitting on gold mines in a few years. I personally would love to be an active part of helping to improve a crime-ridden community and would really love to fix up a house that is begging for someone to appreciate it, but I just don't think that area is far enough along yet for a young, single female such as myself. There are a lot of absentee landlords in this area, and many just let houses sit boarded up until the city condemns them (very sad, lots of historic architecture in that area going to waste).

I agree. It's so beautiful and it's all going to waste being boarded up and...it's just so freaking sad. 0.6 miles west (I had my GPS on me), the houses are going for 200K+. I would love to be part of such a beautiful community but I look at this like the stock market. It's crap because there is so little investor confidence and no one is buying. But you don't want to be the first to take the plunge. I don't want to live in a house that is 100ft from the site of the only random robbery homicide in Raleigh in 2009. And even if I convinced myself that I should do it, my fiancée will be too freaked out.

Originally Posted by miamiblue

You might want to try looking in the Longview and Lockwood neighborhoods if you want to be close to downtown, but under $200k. A friend of mine lives off of Glascock and Marlborough, and says that more young professionals are buying into that neighborhood because it is affordable and in close proximity to downtown, but has less crime and more owner-occupied properties than east downtown. I have heard a few others on this forum mention these areas as well.

I will definitely look into it, thank you.

Originally Posted by gibbie99

We just bought our first home. Here's my two cents. Go to the neighborhood around dinner time, ie 6 or 7pm nowadays, and get a feel for it. Are kids out? Anything going on? Dead silence? In our neighborhood, there are kids running around, playing basketball, baseball, and what not.

What about the neighbors? Gang bangers? Crackheads?

I did this for a house on E Lane St (rental) at ~9pm. Two women tried to approach my moving car and when I kept driving, they went back to standing on the curb. This was not a bus stop. I thought stuff like this only happened in Reno 911.

Originally Posted by gibbie99

Consider a townhome in a nice part of town, or a condo. I had a condo for 8 years and it was overall a good experience. The problem being for us was downstairs neighbors you can't do much about; plus constant turnover, high crime, etc. Its to be expected in certain parts of any town.

I'm trying to find a detached single family home. I have two dogs, and we want a place with a yard and porch (optional). We've been spoiled by where we live right now and the neighborhood we are in (Mordecai).

Originally Posted by gibbie99

Don't buy a property because you plan to make money off it; do it because its a home.

I agree with everything you said. Thank you for the advice. And I'm definitely not looking for an investment; I'm looking for a home.

[lovebrentwood]

Google "beautiful brentwood" to find info about Brentwood subdivision neighborhood.

Under 200K, nice neighborhood, highly convenient, fenced yards, etc. You'll love it.

[needcaffeine]

You're going to be offended. I looked, and the homes there looked kinda cookie cutter to me-- at least in pictures and Google street view. Perhaps my opinion will change if I get my realtor to take me a house there. Also-- not really a fan of subdivisions. At least the subdivisions I've visited. But I'm willing to be wrong.