TALES from the TRENCHES

Editor’s note: A few weeks ago we asked first-time home buyers to share their successes and their stumbles along the path to homeownership. The advice was excellent-- educational and inspirational. With thanks to all who wrote, here’s our annual “Tales From the Home-Buying Trenches.”

‘I Actually Belong Somewhere’

The financial aspects of homeownership are well-known, but it’s rare to find much written about the emotional side of it. I’ve found it’s had a profound impact on my life.

In 1994, after years of renting, I bought a one-bedroom condo and, for the first time since moving to Los Angeles in 1974, I felt I actually belong somewhere.

My father’s career took us from California to Texas, from Texas to Utah, then to Pennsylvania and Iowa. Perhaps this is the first time ever I feel truly at home.

I still get a rush coming home at the end of a long day knowing the place is mine. I know my neighbors for the first time ever, and I actually want to. And I still have the option of coming and going whenever I please and never running into anyone for two weeks.

Deep down, there’s a sense of peace and security as well as pride. It’s a very modest place, which suits me fine. I get a great amount of pleasure from the quiet and the scent of orange blossoms. Sometimes at night, it smells like the woods.

I’m calmer at work. My decisions both in business and in private are made with a little more confidence. It seems odd that a real estate transaction could have such incredible consequences in so many ways.

My advice: Do it. Read everything put in front of you, do research, understand the power of the word “no.” Ask questions, hire a lawyer if you need to. The reward is far greater than the risk.

DAVE GREGORY

Hollywood

‘There Was Nothing We Could Do’

It hurts to be taken in a real estate deal. It is especially painful if it is your first home and you are newlyweds. My husband and I were sold a house with $5,000 worth of termite damage. There was nothing we could do legally because the house was a probate and therefore sold “as is.”

Our advice:

* Be suspicious of everything. We wanted a home so badly that we believed the seller had nothing to hide. We believed the sweet talk of our Realtor.

* Get an independent inspector. In a probate, the inspector should look at the house before an offer is made. If the estate will not let it be examined, run.

MARY ANDREWS

Los Angeles

‘The Best Loan Won, and So Did We’

Don’t let the lenders have the upper hand unless you want a spanking.

When we bought our home, we started the mortgage shopping with four lenders; the best loan won, and so did we. We paid one-eighth of a point, paid no fees (that $2,000 was paid by the seller) and got an 8.1% interest rate. Bottom line: It pays to have lenders compete.

JEREMY HELLIER

Irvine

We Bought With ‘Both Eyes Closed’

My husband and I bought our first home in 1991. It was a new condo complex, so charming and peaceful. We had planned to sell it in a couple years and walk away with at least $20,000 in profit. Wrong! We didn’t anticipate the real estate market talking a nose dive. Our home is now worth half of what we paid for it.

We went into the deal with both eyes closed. Since then our eyes have become wide open. We should have rented a few more years to save more money so we would now be buying the house of our dreams.

Here are some do’s and don’ts that we will never forget:

* Do learn as much as you can about buying a home. Talk to people in the real estate business. Take a real estate class at an adult school. Read as many articles and books as you can.

* Don’t be pressured into buying a home by the real estate agent. The agent we dealt with led us to believe that there were only a few units left of the 60 that had been built and that we had better snatch ours up. The reality was that we were only the second people to buy in the complex.

* Do plan to stay. Be prepared to live in your home several years or you may possibly be faced with losing a lot of money. Never think that you can buy a small place now and sell it for a profit later.

* Don’t think your mortgage is your only payment. There is always the property tax. You may also have to pay an association fee if you purchase a condominium. And remember, if something needs to be fixed, whether it be the plumbing or the walls, you are the one paying for it.

TERESA MURAKAMI

San Pedro

‘We Found Exactly What We Wanted’

It is vital to do two things before starting the home-buying process:

* Establish your purpose or plans in buying a house. Is it going to be your primary residence for the next umpteen years? Will you raise your kids there? Will you remodel it to rent it or sell it?

My husband and I wanted a place we could remodel ourselves while we were living in it so that we could then rent it and move onto our next purchase to do the same thing.

It saves you and your agent time, energy and aggravation if you have your purpose clearly in mind and know the things you must have, the things it would be desirable to have and the things that don’t matter.

* Decide what you’re willing to pay on a monthly basis for your home. Be conservative and keep in mind all the other costs, besides the mortgage: taxes, insurance, utilities, upkeep, repairs, improvements. Doing this helped both us and our agent establish the parameters of the shopping spree: what we wanted to pay and what we’d be willing and able to pay.

We then contracted an agent from a moderately sized brokerage firm that had been buying and selling homes for many years in the area where we wanted to buy, assuming that she would know the market well. We found exactly what we wanted at the price we wanted to pay in 30 days.

ANGIE DI MAURO

Pasadena

‘We Lived Through Two Years of Hell’

Our first home was a beautiful trilevel townhouse in Santa Monica. But we bought in 1991, when real estate was still very high, so we paid too much for it.

Here are three things that we should not have overlooked:

* Make sure to look at the property in the daytime. We looked at night, and it didn’t even occur to us to ask what kind of sunlight the unit got. Much to our dismay, main floor of our condo resembled a cave during the daytime.

2. Check out the neighbors. We were so excited at the prospect of finally owning our own place that we didn’t bother to check out our neighbors or the neighborhood. It turned out that the building on one side was full of hard-core gang members. We lived through two years of hell before we managed to get them evicted.

3. Do a sound check. When buying a condo, try to listen to determine if you can hear your neighbors through the walls. Our master bedroom had cathedral ceilings, and sounds were magnified. We could even hear our neighbors coughing and sneezing at night.

BARBARA GREGGE

Santa Monica

The Buyers’ Lament: ‘Little Did We Realize’

When my wife and I began looking for our first house in 1995, little did we realize how much knowledge we lacked. To future first-time buyers:

* Don’t look for a house until you are pre-approved with a lender. Mistakenly, we took our Realtor’s advice and looked at houses first, instead of searching for lenders.

* Don’t buy a house without an inspection. See next point.

* Do keep your distance. Don’t become too friendly with the sellers of the house you are buying. We did and so did not have an inspection. We have encountered problems with our pool and Jacuzzi that weren’t disclosed at the time of purchase.

* Do find your own mortgage. Don’t let your Realtor act as the middleman with a prospective lender.

* Don’t hire a credit repair firm. The $1,500 we spent was wasted, and we negotiated and settled with the majority of the creditors ourselves.

* Get full disclosure. Be careful about the disclosure clause and make sure your Realtor is knowledgeable about your neighborhood. For example, nobody advised us about the possible future use of rapid transit on the railroad tracks behind our house.

EDWARD and MARSHA

BURGART

Cypress

‘Hammer Away at Those Fees’

Ijust closed escrow on my first house. Here’s my list of things to do or to watch out for.

* Don’t believe anybody. Don’t listen to anybody. Do your own homework.

* Everything is negotiable--mortgage fees, even title company and escrow company fees.

* Your real estate agent might tell you that money is the same at all lenders. That definitely is not true. Get the interest rate and points from every lender you can find, then compare for yourself.

* Watch the costs. Before blindly accepting the seller’s choice of title and escrow companies, check their fees or offer your preference for title and escrow.

* Don’t be shy. You’ve got to hammer away at those fees.

GREG LEWIS

Los Angeles

‘We Did Make Some Mistakes’

We bought our house nearly three years ago, and we are happy with the home and neighborhood. But with a baby on the way, I wish I had thought more about schools.

We did make some mistakes:

* Even if you think you’ve found the right house, don’t stop looking. We’d looked at only about 10 houses before settling on the one we bought.

*If you can, find out how long the house has been on the market. This is difficult with houses “for sale by owner,” but check with neighbors on the street.

* If you make an offer and it is turned down, let the seller sweat for a week or two. We were far too eager to buy the house. There are many houses, and we would have found another one if someone had beaten us to this one.

* Don’t believe everything the seller tells you about the neighborhood and neighbors. Ask around; knock on doors.

* Make sure you agree on exactly what is going to be left behind. Be sure to include such items as light fixtures, kitchen fixtures, curtain rails, appliances. We assumed the built-in dishwasher was part of the kitchen. Our sellers took it.

* Have a home inspection done. We started doing some remodeling and discovered that the sellers had sawed through a major support beam while installing a bathtub some years ago. The whole house had been sinking.

* If there are additions to the house, insist on seeing the permits. Although we loved our converted garage, we discovered that it is illegal. Check for similar zoning violations; it could help with the price negotiations.

* If you’re planning on having children, check out the schools. We will probably move in a few years to find a better school district, although we always knew that our first home would not be big enough to be a family home.

VANESSA and STUART CHAPIN

Los Angeles

‘Make a Deal With Your Neighbor’

Here is my checklist for any first-time home buyer:

* Tell the seller that you just noticed all those empty light sockets and that if you fall on move-in day because of poor interior lighting, you’ll call Larry Parker.

* Open every under-sink cabinet and negotiate having any plastic pipe replaced with metal. Eight years down the road, plastic pipes will cause you to cuss.

* Replace all those incandescent bulbs with screw-in fluorescents; you’ll cut your electricity bill by 50%.

* When you were in that apartment, before your first home, you let the water run continually in the bathroom, didn’t you? Now you pay for every drop. So wet your toothbrush but think: For the two to three minutes you are brushing, why do you need the water running at two gallons a minute?

* Do the same thing in the shower: Turn the water on, lather up; turn the water off while washing and back on when it’s time to rinse. The savings? $20 a month.

* While watching television, turn off living room and/or bedroom lights and watch in the dark to save electricity.

* Take that wheelbarrow from the garage, find an outside spot, set it upright and capture the next rain.

* Make a deal with your neighbor on garbage pickup. If you notice his and your cans half full on pickup day, use his cans and only one of you sign up for pickup, splitting the cost.

PAUL WHITEMAN

Fontana