Watch “A look inside of the POTENTIAL property.” on YouTube

You may be able to use the flood zone issue as a bargaining chip to get them to cut down the price.

But something to consider (and I know you passed on this house): The flood zone designation could make it difficult securing home owners insurance, which is required for all mortgages. We had a similar problem and almost lost the house during escrow because of it.

Do you have a mortgage broker yet? I would ask them about this.

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So gross when people value money over human lives like that. And she seemed so enthusiastic and nice (aren’t they all)!

My husband and I bought a home for the first time in our forties, and it wasn’t at all an ideal situation. We were renting a one-room 250 square foot cottage behind the owner’s home. It was cute and we made it work. We ate a lot of our meals outside on the patio, and we had a small courtyard with six-foot fencing — and the cottage was on an alley, which gave us even more privacy. But the real estate market was flourishing, and when our landlord learned that an old, not so pretty Craftsman style home across the street sold in a bidding war for almost $800,00, in just a few days, she decided it was time to sell.

We were priced out of the local market for buying. We couldn’t even afford an apartment, which wasn’t an option for me anyway, with my hyper sensitivities, so we had no choice but to relocate to a more affordable area in our state, where a branch of my husband’s work was located. For the cost of a crappy apartment in an unsecured building, in a very pricey town, we got a 1200 square foot home with acreage. We don’t love it here, but we’re grateful for what we have. Because of my minimal financial contribution, we almost lost our home, but our mortgage company was able to modify the loan (slightly higher interest rate, longer term), and it dropped our payment almost $200/month.

When you don’t have much income, it often comes down to the month-to-month incoming and outgoing, so we ended up feeling grateful we missed a payment and fell behind, because it resulted in being able to keep our home and stabilizing a bit financially. One thing to note about the purchase price, though: We qualified for $175,000 but set a goal of buying a home well under $150,000. We had so few options in our price range, and when we realized the monthly payment would only minimally increase with a higher priced home, we took a deep breath, reset our priorities, and made an offer on a home we never thought we’d be able to afford.

We didn’t pay for a home inspection, since someone already did just before baking out of the offer they made. I read the report and realized a couple of things: nothing in here is news to me, it’s all what I expect from an older home. It’s all manageable, and most important of all, and this was the deciding factor: We would have rented this property in a heartbeat. Was the house going to fall down anytime soon? Nope. Could we afford the payments? Barely. But we had a deadline hanging over us to move, we qualified for the loan, we had access to the funds via the 401k, and so we leaped.

You can’t rent an apartment back where we were living, or even here, for what we’re paying a month on the mortgage. The tradeoff is financial responsibility as homeowners. But we’re low-key people, so it’s worked out great for us. It just didn’t happen on our timeline, with a large cash downpayment we were trying to save for and in an area we love. We ended up withdrawing the down payment from his modest 401k, and we’re still paying on an installment agreement for the back taxes we owed on the withdrawal.

But we’ve always been broke, we never imagined we’d actually pull off owning a home, and five years into this and our property value has gone up, enough to reimburse us the down payment and to cover realtors fees should we sell. Of course, when the market turns this could drastically change, but when you’re used to not having much, you learn to adapt and adjust and figure things out.

If we can say no to the stupid things like stupid ass Starbucks, which pretty much owns us, we can clear our debts this year and grow a savings account so we can buy land, build a home, and be free of a mortgage as we enter our 60s and beyond. I hate long-term planning; I’m too caught up in the here and now. But I keep seeing what happens when you don’t plan and are still slaving it all to a mortgage in old age. Old age happens, debts accumulate, and people are forced out of their homes. It’s scary stuff.

You’re heading in a good direction, Ericka, and you’re being really smart about it. Keep posting updates on this process. Long comment, but maybe there’s something in there that will give you some ideas as you search for your home. Reading other people’s home buying experiences helped us out a lot.

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Ack, flood zone. Scary in Florida. You’re being smart about this. Your home is out there; it’s just a matter of time doing its thing so everything aligns and the process of making it yours finally happens.

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