Get your home priorities in order

There is nothing like buying a home to help sort out priorities; so Troy Carter and Danielle Dubi of Volo decided to eliminate yard work but live close to family.

Chris and Lekeysha Young of Sauk Village chose more space over a short commute. And although she says she is “very much a vintage-type of girl,” Jennifer Hildenbiddle opted for the security and sun of a Chicago high-rise.

Financing is always the first consideration–and hurdle–for home ownership, but recent low interest rates and a wide variety of mortgages have opened the door to more first-time buyers.

The result: a bewildering array of choices.

“It is a great time for buying, the best time in my lifetime,” says Tim Grogan, executive vice president of Residential Homes of America Inc. (RHA) in Lake Bluff.

The reason he added, is because home seekers have “so much buying ability.”

Yet Diane Goers, sales manager at Deer Creek Estates in south suburban Sauk Village, says the biggest difficulty for many first-time buyers is “what to have in the house, not only for now but for the future.”

She is seeing a growing contingent of younger first-time buyers, many single, who are no longer waiting for marriage before owning a home. More young people “buy once they are secure in their job,” Goers says.

Yet many “are overwhelmed by all the selections,” she says. Accordingly, she sometimes finds herself urging first-time buyers not to spend all of their money on the house, but to set something aside for furniture and landscaping.

Goers says she doesn’t care what a buyer’s occupation is, but she does care how a buyer plans to utilize a home.

“Sometimes they look at the big, pretty picture and not at their square footage needs,” she says.

“I try to talk to them to find out what their lifestyle is … how do they want to use the house? Do they have informal or formal living?”

The answers can mean the difference between showing a buyer a plan with a formal dining room or a plan where an extra door can be added in the kitchen for barbecuing on the back deck.

“When they come home from work, I want them happy in that house. I don’t want them cringing,” she says.

It can take some time and hard thought to define those priorities, as Jennifer Hildenbiddle found out.

Before she considered buying, Hildenbiddle, 33, had lived and rented in several cities. As a result, she says, she had developed an unrealistic list of “must haves” for her first home.

“It had to have 20 percent down, two bedrooms with exposed brick walls,” she recalls. But after shopping Chicago’s condominium market, she says, “I had to do a reality check.”

Sure about her budget, she had done extensive reading and filled out the charts in “Home Buying for Dummies” (Hungry Minds Inc. $21.99) and learned from the experience of a friend who bought a home a year earlier.

Determined to make a 20 percent down payment because “I didn’t want to pay PMI (private mortgage insurance),” Hildenbiddle concentrated her search on small condo buildings.

She stopped at Shoreline Park, a 570-unit condo conversion by Crescent Heights at 4950 N. Marine Dr., as a favor to an acquaintance.

“My visit was strictly to check it off the list,” she recalls.

Once at the building, she found, “I loved the location. I loved that I could be close to the lake and the security aspect. I come home at night at late hours and I can pull into the garage without concern. Then I saw the sundeck and I thought `maybe I could like a high-rise.'”

She bought a 750-square-foot, one-bedroom condo with a parking space for about $170,000 in fall 2002. Although her home has only one bedroom and lacks the exposed brick walls she had once envisioned, it has plenty of light, a key priority for Hildenbiddle, who describes herself as “a light and sunny person.”

“It is the perfect size for one person,” she says. “I can clean it all in one morning.”

In contrast, space emerged as one of the top priorities for Christopher and Lekeysha Young, both 29, who shopped for about 18 months before building at Deer Creek Estates, a subdivision by West Development Group of Country Club Hills.

“We went in categories — size, location, price and features,” Chris Young recalls of how the couple tried to order priorities. Size and good use of space always hovered near the top.

“We liked the size of the bedrooms, family room and basement,” Chris Young recalls. “The basement was kind of my convincing point. It could be a large recreation area for my friends, children or company.”

The couple and their infant son moved into the two-story, 2,400 square foot house in December. The four-bedroom home cost about $226,000.

To keep within their budget, the Youngs “started with the base price and then went through the entire list of options adding anything we’d like to have.

“When that number was added up, we revisited the same list to begin subtracting what we needed and what we really didn’t need to get as close as possible to the budget figure,” Chris Young says.

Bottom line: Space outweighed such extras as a fireplace and even overcame a preference to be closer to their jobs.

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Lekeysha “liked this house. She was willing to make a 50-minute commute,” Young says.

Though the search took time, the couple today looks back on what they learned. They joke about a model home to which Chris returned several times during their home search.

“Every time I went back, the rooms got smaller and smaller,” he says. “If they hadn’t had that model, we would be living in that house.”

The shopping time was shorter for Greg and Cassy Mate of McHenry and Troy Carter and Danielle Dubi of Volo. But family emerged as a key priority in the home buying decisions of both couples.

Married in August 2002, the Mates shopped for about two months looking for a house with a room big enough to accommodate Cassy’s large family.

They bought a 2,150 square foot two-story home by Gerstad Builders at Trails of River Oaks and moved in February 2003.

The $223,000 three-bedroom with loft residence has a 19-by-15-foot great room for family gatherings.

The Mates planned ahead and made one other key decision in their shopping: they did not include Cassy’s salary as a teacher when they applied for a mortgage. The decision means Cassy, now expecting their first child, will be able to stay home after the baby is born. In addition, Greg Mate decided to tackle the lawn himself rather than paying several thousand dollars for landscaping.

“I enjoy being outdoors and having our first house,” he says.

“I wanted to see if I could grow grass” he says, adding that he views yard work as “a form of exercise.”

Conversely, Troy Carter, 30, and Danielle Dubi, 23, chose to buy at Terra Springs by RHA in north suburban Volo, in part, because they do not want yard work.

Carter, a retail manager, and Dubi, a teacher, limited their house hunting to the northern suburbs so Dubi could be close to family. But they also sought a new construction development with exterior maintenance provided.

“When Danielle comes home at the end of the day, she likes to relax. And with my job and all the crazy hours I work, we get to be together maybe two or three nights a week. With our type of jobs, the homeowner’s fee is worth it,” Carter says.

The couple looked for about two months before deciding on a 1,700-square-foot, two-bedroom townhouse with a loft, unfinished walkout basement and two-car garage.

It “was bigger for the money than some of the other townhouses we saw,” Carter says. “The basement was a must. The reason is for resale and storage.

“We have two cars and that limits the storage in the garage. We did buy the house on the thought that we could be here for up to 10 years.”

Couple achieved savings

Early buyers in the townhouse phase of the development, the couple took advantage of several incentives and got a prime site. The townhouse they bought has a base price in the high $170,000s.

To estimate expenses in addition to the mortgage, Carter says they duplicated the utility bills paid by Danielle’s mother, who also lives in a townhouse.

“You don’t want to be mortgage poor and not be able to go out to eat on Friday night,” Carter says.

“You really, really have to be careful,” says Carter of those who are shopping on a budget.

He suggests taking time to learn what is standard and what is not and carefully studying incentive packages before making a purchase.

Some model homes “are definitely bait,” he says. “They have wood woodwork, not the plastic wood” and other upgrades which can add significantly to the purchase price.

“Those add-ons will kill you,” he warns.

“Do your research,” he urges. “Do not jump at the first home you love.”