Home buying questions I should know, but I don't

[dmclone]

We've been in the same house 20 years, and we're thinking about selling and upgrading. Since it's been so long,I have a few questions:

1. I currently have a mortgage, but we only owe $25k on the mortgage. I didn't pay it off early because it's 2.75%.

2. I'll have enough saved that once we sell our house, we won't need a mortgage for the new house. The new house will be a new model.

What does this process look like? Do we make a contingent offer on the house based on the potential sale of our current property? How long do these go for? Do builders usually go along with these contingent offers? Do i need to put any money down?

Since I won't be getting a mortgage, do I need an assessment? Anything else I can skip out on?

What are people paying to move these days? From one DSM suburb to another, 2,500 sqft house, etc.. Movers you would recommend?

Anything else I should be aware of.

Not a question, but my god the Des Moines metro has high property taxes.

 

[ackatch]

I can shed some light on the contingent offer part.

When we moved down from MN, we put a contingent offer on the house we were buying down here (it was a brand new house) - the builder went along with it - with the caveat that if someone else came in with cash in hand or no contingency, we would lose out if we didn't remove the contingency on our MN home within 24 hours. In an amazing turn of events, someone else came in on the house around 4PM one day... At 1PM that day a couple had toured our MN house and loved it (we creeped on the baby monitor/SimpliSafe cameras)... At 7PM that night I texted our realtor about lowering our price to get them to buy. At 8PM that night we signed the docs to sell.

We used Lindt Van Lines to move our bulky stuff from MN down and they were great to work with. We moved all our non-furniture stuff ourselves (multiple trips down to Iowa with my FiL's trailer).

 

[cytor]

We've been in the same house 20 years, and we're thinking about selling and upgrading. Since it's been so long,I have a few questions:

1. I currently have a mortgage, but we only owe $25k on the mortgage. I didn't pay it off early because it's 2.75%.

2. I'll have enough saved that once we sell our house, we won't need a mortgage for the new house. The new house will be a new model.

What does this process look like? Do we make a contingent offer on the house based on the potential sale of our current property? How long do these go for? Do builders usually go along with these contingent offers? Do i need to put any money down?

Since I won't be getting a mortgage, do I need an assessment? Anything else I can skip out on?

What are people paying to move these days? From one DSM suburb to another, 2,500 sqft house, etc.. Movers you would recommend?

Anything else I should be aware of.

Not a question, but my god the Des Moines metro has high property taxes.

Minnesota: "Hold my beer" I don't know what Polk county property taxes are like, but up here in Minny, I pay $9600 for 2025.

 

[FriendlySpartan]

We've been in the same house 20 years, and we're thinking about selling and upgrading. Since it's been so long,I have a few questions:

1. I currently have a mortgage, but we only owe $25k on the mortgage. I didn't pay it off early because it's 2.75%.

2. I'll have enough saved that once we sell our house, we won't need a mortgage for the new house. The new house will be a new model.

What does this process look like? Do we make a contingent offer on the house based on the potential sale of our current property? How long do these go for? Do builders usually go along with these contingent offers? Do i need to put any money down?

Since I won't be getting a mortgage, do I need an assessment? Anything else I can skip out on?

What are people paying to move these days? From one DSM suburb to another, 2,500 sqft house, etc.. Movers you would recommend?

Anything else I should be aware of.

Not a question, but my god the Des Moines metro has high property taxes.

For a new model find the best most thorough inspector you can. A lot of the news builds have major issues due to sloppy construction and just pumping out homes at speed.

 

[trevn]

If you're not financing the property, you don't need an appraisal. That's a lending requirement. Title opinions would be another item you could theoretically skip, although I wouldn't.

 

[ackatch]

For a new model find the best most thorough inspector you can. A lot of the news builds have major issues due to sloppy construction and just pumping out homes at speed.

We didn't do one before we bought, but did one at the 10 month mark as we were still under the 1 year warranty our builder had. It worked out pretty well from us, but we bought from a local builder (Kimberly) and not a huge national brand.

Minnesota: "Hold my beer" I don't know what Polk county property taxes are like, but up here in Minny, I pay $9600 for 2025.

Dallas County/Waukee here - this year ours were $9800. Where are you in MN that it's 9600? Our last year in Lakeville it was only like... $5400

 

[dmclone]

Minnesota: "Hold my beer" I don't know what Polk county property taxes are like, but up here in Minny, I pay $9600 for 2025.

In most of Des Moines area, that's what you would pay for a $600k house.

 

[dmclone]

We didn't do one before we bought, but did one at the 10 month mark as we were still under the 1 year warranty our builder had. It worked out pretty well from us, but we bought from a local builder (Kimberly) and not a huge national brand.


Dallas County/Waukee here - this year ours were $9800. Where are you in MN that it's 9600? Our last year in Lakeville it was only like... $5400

Have you been happy with Kimberly? That's one of the builders that we're considering.

 

[wxman1]

Can the ceiling support a sex swing?

 

[ackatch]

Have you been happy with Kimberly? That's one of the builders that we're considering.

Overall - yes. There were some issues with some of the things in the house that took awhile to get fixed, but I also understand that the in 2022 the builders were crazy busy and things took time. It did take like 3 months for us to get a lawn which sucked, but that was honestly the biggest complaint.

We bought basically a spec house and didn't get a chance to change anything on it, so there are things I would have done differently that we're ending up having to do, but like my wife says "nothing will check every single box on our list".

 

[Cyched]

Can the ceiling support a sex swing?

We have structural engineers in our office. I’ll ask them.

 

[Agclone91]

As far as the contingency goes, it probably just depends how competitive you anticipate the market for the home to be. The only reason we got the home we are currently in is because we came in with a no contingency offer and the seller picked us over various others. Contingencies around selling your current home aren't generally deal breakers but not having one definitely gives you a leg up.

 

[JEFF420]

If you're not financing the property, you don't need an appraisal. That's a lending requirement. Title opinions would be another item you could theoretically skip, although I wouldn't.

our first house..... Wells fargo served us with a lean... we had bought the house from a guy whose mom had just died.... they took out a loan with the house in 2000 (this is 2017)... never paid it back and it got lost in the paper to computer crossover? idk. but thankfully we had the title insurance!

 

[trevn]

our first house..... Wells fargo served us with a lean... we had bought the house from a guy whose mom had just died.... they took out a loan with the house in 2000 (this is 2017)... never paid it back and it got lost in the paper to computer crossover? idk. but thankfully we had the title insurance!

Yeah this is an exact reason why you should get a title opinion/title insurance done when buying real estate regardless of whether or not you're financing. Title defects can happen at any point in the chain of title and can cause all kinds of issues down the road for you.

 

[AgronAlum]

The contingencies and deposits are going to be builder specific but I'm sure builders will do almost anything you want right now. There are a bunch of builders in the DSM area sitting on spec homes that they can't get rid of. You may get a better deal on a spec home as well. Generally they are more willing to work with you to get it off their books.

 

[Dandy]

We've been in the same house 20 years, and we're thinking about selling and upgrading. Since it's been so long,I have a few questions:

1. I currently have a mortgage, but we only owe $25k on the mortgage. I didn't pay it off early because it's 2.75%.

2. I'll have enough saved that once we sell our house, we won't need a mortgage for the new house. The new house will be a new model.

3. What does this process look like? Do we make a contingent offer on the house based on the potential sale of our current property? How long do these go for? Do builders usually go along with these contingent offers? Do i need to put any money down?

4. Since I won't be getting a mortgage, do I need an assessment? Anything else I can skip out on?

5. What are people paying to move these days? From one DSM suburb to another, 2,500 sqft house, etc.. Movers you would recommend?

6. Anything else I should be aware of.

7. Not a question, but my god the Des Moines metro has high property taxes.

Not an expert here, just replying using my own experience.
1. Congrats!
2. New model = new build? We are on our third (and final) house. Just moved in October 2024. There will be things the seller won't disclose, unfortunately. We always put an American Home Shield warranty on the house for the first year. This time we needed it immediately as there were two broken pipes in the basement.
3. If you can buy your new home without a mortgage you don't need a contingency. This will make your buying power increase. We were one of three offers on our new purchase. But the only one where we didn't need to sell our home to buy theirs. They took our offer. You will need to put down earnest money with someone, likely the seller/seller's realtor??
4. Assessment = appraisal? Up to you. If you're confident the purchase price matches the market value you can likely skip this. Inspection is up to you. We never have but some swear by them. Again, we go with Home Warranty instead of Inspection.
5. We do not live in the city but we paid a company to move the big things (tables, couch, beds, dressers, TVs, etc) but we moved the small things (clothes, bedding, kitchen items, towels, etc) ourselves.
6.1 There will be surprises, even with a new build. You'll likely only view your new home an hour, maybe two and it will be quick walkthroughs. Layout and "flow" are keys, don't focus on the finishes. You can always update those yourself (ie wall colors, light fixtures, etc).
6.2 It's going to take some time. Lining up everything from the day you sign a Purchase Agreement to the day you Close will likely be ~60 days. Then moving will take a couple days, unpacking couple days, on and on. Then again, this may go faster since you'll be paying cash.
7. That's city living for you! But no one ever says "my taxes are so low/affordable."

 

[1SEIACLONE]

If you are building a new home, do not go cheap on the windows. Vinyl sucks, spend a little extra and. either purchase Anderson or Pella, high quality products that will last. Anderson windows come with a 20 year guarantee, not sure about Pella windows. We replaced 7 windows in our home, built in 2016, all vinyl, the house is not only warmer, but it really cut down on the noise from the outside. Many try to save money on windows and doors when they build, and it's one of the those things that ends up biting them in the butt down the road.

 

[JM4CY]

We have structural engineers in our office. I’ll ask them.

What kind of construction screws would they recommend? Or is this a multi-bolt situation? Asking for a friend.

 

[KennyPratt42]

Do what you want, but I would really look at some homes built in the late 90s through the mid 2010s, that have had some updates/upgrades done, in the same price range as the new construction you are looking at. When I've looked at new construction compared to our current home, which was built around 2000, I've been shocked at how much worse the construction, finishes, and size is compared to our current home. We've done about $150k in renovations to our house, full kitchen renovations including changing the size and layout being the biggest. To get the same finished square footage and a similar overall quality of finishes in a new construction, I would be have to pay at least $200k more than I could sell my house for. To get the same quality kitchen I would need to get a house that is bigger than our current 4,000 sq ft of finish and at least a half million more expensive unless I had the house custom built.

 

[KennyPratt42]

In terms of buying a house before selling your existing house, I've done it two different ways. Once I had a purchase agreement with a subject to sale clause. The house I was buying stayed on the market and if the seller got another offer they wanted to take I had 24 hours to cure (remove the subject to sale clause and set a closing date). The other time I had some cash and a small paid off house and got a bridge loan from the bank. Used the cash as a down payment at time of closing on the new house and when I closed on selling my old house most of that money went to pay off the bridge loan (in my case the bridge loan was a first lien on the old house, in your case it would be a second).