[blparent] Advice: buying a house

Wed May 9 15:23:59 UTC 2012

Oh, and one other thing not necessarily blindness related but very 
important, don't let yourself get talked into more house than you can afford 
comfortably.  Sometimes you'll qualify for a higher monthly payment than you 
think you can handle.  Go with your gut, and remember that you may have to 
stick to your guns on this point.  When I bought my town home, I qualified 
for a monthly payment that was nearly $200 higher than the payment for the 
home, but I didn't feel okay about that much of my monthly income going 
toward my mortgage.  It was a good thing, too, because when the bottom 
dropped out of the economy, my income dropped by about a third, but the 
payments are still not too much of a stretch for me.  I would have been in 
real financial trouble if I'd gotten talked into a higher mortgage.  Stick 
firm on it, because you're the only one who knows how much of a payment you 
can handle, especially since you may need to pay homeowners' association 
dues, plus someone to help with yard maintenance if you can't do it 
yourselves, and a fund for emergencies, which happen at the most inopportune 
times.

Jo Elizabeth

"How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, 
compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of 
the weak and the strong.  Because someday in life you will have been all of 
these."--George Washington Carver, 1864-1943, American scientist

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Jennifer Jackson" <jennifersjackson at att.net>
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2012 5:15 PM
To: "'Blind Parents Mailing List'" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blparent] Advice: buying a house

> Congratulations on becoming home owners. I am completely willing to talk
> about the process as a blind person, but you may also wish to consider if
> home ownership is really for you. I sure liked calling the land lord when
> the plumbing or the roof were leaking. I highly advise joining the blind
> handyman list because they are a wonderful source for how to fix or build
> anything.
>
> So, back to actually buying a house. It is normal to have your realtor 
> drive
> you around. My husband drives and we still sometimes got into one car with
> the realtor to drive to different sites. It is a better use of your 
> realtors
> time to go to several houses at a time. Please also remember that your
> realtor is also a sales person who makes her money on the commission. No
> matter how nice she is, your best interest will come after her own.
>
> This was not available back when I was house hunting, but I had an o&m
> lesson a couple of weeks ago and we used Google maps a lot. It will
> apparently show bus routes and green spaces for parks along with all kinds
> of other information. If your realtor is willing, or perhaps you have 
> enough
> site to access this, you could really use this tool to check out important
> information about transportation.
>
> Look at your finances and know how much money you really have for changes
> you may need. If you find the perfect house, but the yard is not fenced 
> you
> may have to walk away if you have to have a fence and you do not have 
> money
> set aside for that. Paint can also be an issue. The cheapest paint is a 
> flat
> paint that is not only not washable, but picks up marks easily. I am sure
> that I touch my walls more just as part of staying oriented or in reaching
> for light and fan switches than a sighted person does. You may want to
> consider repainting, at least the high traffic areas, with a washable 
> paint.
> This will be easier and cheaper before you move in.
>
> One of the things I do not like about my house is that the room my two
> younger sons share upstairs can not be monitored easily by sound. I have 
> to
> go upstairs and down the hall to get close enough to really hear what is
> going on. It would sure be easier if I could check on them more subtly and
> often as I go about the course of my day. I find that I spend the majority
> of my time in the kitchen and laundry room which are the spaces directly
> below their room and on the opposite side of the house from the stairs. I
> suggest you give some thought to where you will need to be doing your 
> things
> and where the kids will be hanging out. It will not be long before your
> little one is mobile and taking off for the other parts of the house.
>
> Do as much research as possible ahead of time on line. One thing that I
> found useful was to check on the  property taxes for a house and compare
> them to the neighborhoods I was interested in buying in.
>
> I think it is harder as blind people to look at houses where people still
> live. One thing you may find helpful is to measure the rooms in your 
> current
> place and then take a tape measure with you to the houses you are
> considering. You have a good feel for how big your bedroom is now and will
> know better if the new master bedroom will work if you have those
> measurements. Take the measurements for a standard couch and your beds 
> too.
>
> Here is some advise that has nothing to do with blindness and everything 
> to
> do with buying a house as a couple. Couples often end up in the house that
> is the least objectionable to everyone. You find houses that one or 
> another
> of you loves, but the other does not. So you keep looking. In the end you
> are both just tired of house hunting and you end up with a house that you
> both think is ok, but no one really loves. If I buy a house with someone
> else again, it will be a house that one of us, preferably me, loves.
> Somebody should get to love anything you spend that much money, time, and
> energy on.
>
> That is all I can think of right now. I hope this has been helpful.
>
>
> Jennifer
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of jan wright
> Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 6:53 AM
> To: blparent
> Subject: [blparent] Advice: buying a house
>
> Hi All,
> First, I want to thank everyone who responded to my questions about
> bottles and johnny jumper things.
> We have a pretty consistent group of parents and child care providers
> who --- may not always agree, but give wonderful advice for each
> season of our lives. And, we are as diverse as any other parent group:
> from spiritual to not; from crunchy to progressive (those might not
> be opposites, but you understand what I mean); from babies to adult
> children; from stay-at-home parents  to working parents; ... etc.
>
> So, I thought that I might post here about our "house buying" and ask
> for any tips and advice. I have done research, but, there isn't much
> from a blind person's prospective. Maybe there doesn't need to be:
> because maybe it is not any different from sighted people buying a
> house. But, I did have a couple of questions:
> 1. How did you choose your realtor? We have one of these, already, but
> wonder if we  shouldn't have looked farther. DH's boss said that his
> realtor would transport him to and from the prospective houses. Is
> that normal??? We find that this is one of the most difficult things
> to do because paratransit takes so long, we can only see one house
> per day.
> 2. Public transportation is not very good here in Indy. People from
> other cities have commented on how fragmented it is. And, there aren't
> many sidewalks in residential areas or down busy streets and ... ... a
> good shoulder is hard to find. [ARe those words to a country
> song?????]  (smile) But, we are trying to find a house that is close
> to a bus stop --- and a bus stop that would take DH to work and us
> downtown. Sometimes we find a house close to a bus stop, but the wrong
> bus stops there.
>
> Any other advice????
>
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