My wife and I need some advice....

[Dave M]

I tell my wife not to let me go into Lowe's any more. Every time I do I come out with 10 times more stuff then I went int here with. It's like a toy store for grown-up boys.

[Joe K. 99 Zeee!!]

And/or Lowes etc.

Those are evil places for the wallet but I LOVE to find an excuse to wander the aisles.

Ha! Trips to Home Depot are made in pairs. There's the first trip to get what you think you need. Then the 2nd to return excess, exchange, or buy more to get the job done.

[Dave M]

Thanks for the advice, Guys. I definitely won't go for an adjustable rate mortgage. The only thing I will look at is fixed rate. We would most likely be using an FHA loan, which is fixed rate and allows for no DP. I do qualify for the lowest available rate, as my credit score is over 740. From what I have learned, the mortgage companies here quote payments with the taxes and insurance included. That, they say, usually comes out to 1% of the value of the loan. So, if we were to buy a $120K house, the payment would be around $1200.
We do currently pay for electric, water, and phone in our apartment. So we are used to that. I've been told that new homes these days are much more energy efficient than most apartments and that new home owners experience power bills that are very similar to what they had in an apartment. This is according to the Realtor that we have been talking to.
I have been pre-approved by a couple of banks for up to like $200,000. LOL I was like...uhmmm....you sure? The $1200 number I mentioned was just from the average of what the houses we are looking at go for. That will get you about 1300-2000sq ft, 3-4 bedrooms/2 bath/2 car garage/central air, brick, garden tub w/ seperate shower, ceramic tile, fireplace, etc etc. That is why we want to buy soon, because we are afraid that once the market takes an upswing, even if we save 10% down, that 10% will only be like 4% of the future value of the same house when we finally get done saving. I don't know. Maybe that is unrealistic. I am still learning all this stuff. Once again, thanks for the input and advice. Keep it coming, I am taking it all into consideration.

Using an online calculator, I got a payment of about $1,020 on a $120,000 loan, at 6.5% interest rate. Using the lowest currently available rate from bankrate.com (5.79%) gives a payment of $964. However, I don't know what property taxes and insurance runs in your area, I used figures comparable to what I pay. I figured $2,000 annually for property tax and $500 for homeowner's insurance. If you're getting a figure of $1,200/month you must be paying substantially more than that for taxes/insurance, or you're using a higher rate. All things to take into consideration when making a decision.