First-Time Buyers Share Their Stories : Times readers share what they learned from the experience of buying a first home.

Albert Rowuin and Marlene Portillo

LA PUENTE

Like many others in Southern California, my girlfriend and I were lured into the real estate market for the first time last year, primarily because of the drop in housing prices and interest rates.

Rather than describe our six-month-long adventure of looking at more than 75 homes, I think you will be able to understand some of our ordeals from the following list of do’s and don’ts for first-time home buyers.

The Don’ts:

--Don’t stay too long with an agent that is not working out. For example, we were very comfortable with an agent who always made time for us, showed us many homes, was nice to talk to, but kept showing us property that was either off the market or did not meet our financing requirements. We spent many more months dealing with this agent than we should have. There are always plenty of other agents to work with.

Also, if you feel the need to work with more than one agent at a time, be upfront with them with what you are doing and why, to avoid hurt feelings later.

--Don’t expect to find a home that is perfect in every way. Decide upfront what you must have and what you will never accept. Obviously, the more time and patience you have to go through the search process and the more money you have for the down payment and for the mortgage, the pickier you can be. It is not worth the argument to try to get somebody to like a home that they dislike.

--Don’t rush into making a home offer without a comparative market analysis (CMA) of recent selling prices of similar nearby homes. Also avoid making an offer if your recollection of the home is hazy or if you feel an uncomfortable sense of urgency. Multiple visits to the same home should be understandable--this is a very big investment on your part.

--Take time to visit the neighborhood at different times of the day and on different days of the week. An area that is quiet on a Sunday afternoon may be quite different on Friday nights.

--Don’t hesitate to contact your mortgage lender or agent with your questions and concerns. Even though you are not paying for their services upfront, do not feel that they are helping you out of the pure goodness of their hearts. They will be reimbursed for their efforts when a home is sold to a satisfied buyer.

The Do’s:

--Wait for a home that each financial participant can agree upon. Make a checklist of our “must haves,” “nice to haves” and “must definitely not haves,” being considerate of each participant’s feelings, patience and a reasonable budget (be sure to be pre-qualified from at least one lender!). Eliminate homes from consideration that do not have all of your “musts” or that have any of your “must not haves.” Revise your checklist as necessary to meet reality.

--Get at least one good home-buying book (or audio book if you are very busy) that is in a comfortable format that you will read. We used Robert Irwin’s “Tips & Traps When Buying a Home.”

--Keep an eye out for signs of a bad mortgage company. Nothing will keep you up later in the middle of the night than the worry that your hard effort to find a home won’t work out financially. Some of the signs of a bad lender include a loan officer who does not return your calls promptly, blames lack of attention due to factors such as “being really swamped” or “busy with month-end problems.” Be wary of loan officers who mishandle your documents (“Oops, I need another set of current pay stubs”), give you false assurances or are overly optimistic (and are then surprised when things don’t go as expected).

Be sure you understand what your loan officer is telling you and that you feel you are receiving fair treatment. There are always plenty of other lenders to go to!

--Expect unsolicited calls (at all hours!) and junk mail from everybody for everything soon after you move. Once companies find out that you are financially responsible enough to become a homeowner, they will bombard you with offers.

Good luck to all first-time buyers. It’s still a good market out there.

Felicia Levitt

GLENDALE

Buying a home is a life-changing event and the financial consequences of a poor choice are staggering. Despite the scariness, for me, the urge toward homeownership was almost biological in its intensity. My daughters and I had moved four times since my divorce from their father. We wanted to settle permanently, but buying my own home seemed impossible. When prices and interest rates kept dropping, I realized my time was finally at hand.

I cannot stress enough the importance of using an experienced and trustworthy agent. Mine was recommended by a neighbor who had very successfully sold her home. My agent found me an energetic lender with whom she worked well and they stayed in touch throughout the process. Together we established a financial ceiling to avoid the heartbreaking disappointment that comes from looking at too-expensive homes.

She helped me decide what elements in a house were essential and what elements were optional. She watched for new listings and notified me of any possibilities. She provided printouts of all available houses in my price range. She drove for hours to show me new areas. After seeing myriad homes, she urged me to reinspect one I had rejected earlier. I was unenthusiastic; it was a nice area, but the house was dull, dirty and unappealing. But I looked again. Despite the murky darkness from overgrown trees and a severe spider infestation, the patio had a pleasant feel. My search continued elsewhere, but I was drawn to that house and I drove by almost every day. To my agent’s delight, I began to seriously consider it. She realized that, if the right price could be negotiated, the home’s defects could be easily fixed. The final price is one I now consider a fantastic bargain.

My agent worked with the owners, lender, title company and escrow officer. Everyone was in touch; deadlines were met and documents delivered on time. For the fix-up work needed, she even recommended reliable contractors. When finished, my once-dull little house was transformed into a bright, lovely place to be--no longer the “plain Jane” of the neighborhood.

Today my family is finally settled and I sit on the same patio that had drawn me so subtly that I almost missed its call. It is odd now to remember that I almost overlooked the house that has brought me such proud pleasure.

Sharing in this new-home joy, my agent said, is one of the great pleasures of being a realtor. I urge every buyer to seek an agent with this attitude.

Alan LaPointe

SILVER LAKE

In less than five months, what began as a skeptical visit to a loan officer became our first home. Escrow closed recently and, other than the time I completed the Los Angeles Marathon, I’ve never been so physically and emotionally exhausted.

Adventures along the way:

--An appallingly unprofessional loan officer at a major national bank who did not return calls from my agent or me for three weeks. Only by calling his boss did I get a response. We dumped him.

--A near-deal that we chose not to complete when it became clear that the house’s lovely master bedroom was built without a permit.

--A well-meaning and very nice agent who just didn’t seem to know the area we bought in well enough.

--Another agent in the same area who knew the area and really knew what she was doing. Her contributions--helping to make a very complicated deal work and referring us to the source of a better loan than the one we had--were invaluable.

--Dealing with our new loan officer, who did everything she said she would do on time with no problems . . . and cheerfully returned all calls. It was that lender’s remarkable 3% down loan that hooked us.

--Finding out that a “short payoff” deal, in which the seller is forgiven part of his debt, is an excruciatingly painful process. We went many days with our fate in the hands of our seller’s bank, hoping they’d let it happen.

In two days, my brother and I will commandeer a rented pickup to write the final chapter of this story. We move in.

More important than any of the adventure/ordeal described above, however, is that I can now say that my 1-year-old daughter actually has her own room.

Gina La Polla

PALMDALE

My husband, Gregg, and I purchased our first home in July, 1992. At the time there was an overabundance of new homes in the Antelope Valley, and the model we were considering in the builder’s Phase II had already dropped from $176,900 to $144,900. I sympathized with my neighbors who had paid the original Phase I price, but I also knew that in this declining market I had tremendous bargaining power. Buying the home was a great adventure for us.

In the end, we offered $138,900, were given $1,000 to put window treatments in our new home, received both front- and back-yard landscaping with automatic sprinklers and a timer box, a washer, a dryer and $200 to purchase a garage door opener. In addition, the seller agreed to pay $3,000 to buy down our loan to an 8% 30-year fixed mortgage.

But when we applied for our loan, the adventure ended and our ordeal began. We were assigned the underwriter from Hell!

Because we pre-qualified so easily, we assumed the rest would be a piece of cake. Boy, were we wrong! I was not working at the time, having just given birth to our first child. Because of that, I was asked to submit copies of my college transcripts and to write a letter outlining my ambitions and intentions to help support my family.

My husband had to submit a letter explaining his incentives to drive an additional 20 miles to work. I was required to read a manual and complete the exercises at the end of each chapter so I would know just how to handle my family budget to avoid default. My husband had to write a letter explaining a $12 service charge to his checking account three months previously. He was told the letter must include an apology and what he intended to do to ensure that would never happen again. Any money deposited into our checking account, other than my husband’s weekly paycheck, had to be explained and verified.

After hearing of our ordeal, my father contacted the lender and offered to co-sign the loan if it would help. Boy, was that a mistake. The lender refused to have both of our names on the mortgage. Then they went after him, requiring him to sign documents swearing that he had no monetary interest in our home and that he did not lend us a penny of our down payment.

My advice to all you first-time home buyers:

--Use your bargaining power for all it’s worth.

--Be prepared to submit to humiliating requests from the lender.

--Know where every single dime you intend to use as your down payment comes from, and be prepared to prove it.

--Never, ever drag an innocent loved one into this trying ordeal.

Debra and Jeffrey Pompilio

LONG BEACH

We purchased our first home in September, 1993, and it was the worst experience of our lives. Our escrow was scheduled for 30 days, but it took four months and it was 100% hassle.

To begin, we found a house, made an offer--it was accepted--and qualified for a loan. All we had to do was wait out the escrow. Wrong!

The sellers had added on an enclosed patio that they said was up to code and legal. Here’s where all the trouble began. The patio wasn’t what they claimed and, just our luck, it was recognized three days prior to the close of escrow. We extended our escrow and had a city building inspector come out. The patio needed major adjustments, so we once again had to extend our escrow. The construction company scheduled to do the work pulled out at the last minute.

By now the sellers had bought another home and moved most of their belongings; we had given our moving notice to our landlord and packed up most of our belongings.

The sellers said they couldn’t stay around to finish the patio job, so they offered us a small sum to do the work ourselves. Our realtor told us we’d better take the money because she couldn’t take it anymore.

Still we pursued the home. The sellers left town and their realtor wouldn’t let us do our walk-through as scheduled; our realtor had gained other clients, so didn’t really care about our hassle anymore. The walk-through did get done, finally, and the loan funded. We were homeowners.

My biggest tips on buying a home are these:

--Be sure your realtor is 100% committed to you, no matter how long or hard your process may be.

--Be sure he or she is very knowledgeable of real estate laws and your rights.

--If the home you’re trying to purchase isn’t going smoothly, within reason, it isn’t meant to be.

Sheri and Boyce Smith

LAKEWOOD

My husband and I have been married almost a year and have now made the colossal decision to buy our first home. We first began by looking for the perfect home and, sure enough, we found it right away. It was a beautiful three-bedroom, three-bath with two-car garage, two-fireplaces and vaulted ceilings. This was the house we wanted to raise our children in and grow old in.

Then came the time to talk to the lender. We both gave very little thought to this portion of our journey to buying a home. We both had given painstaking effort for years to keep our credit clean. We both had good secure jobs. Also we had a good-sized sum down payment, courtesy of the parents.

We thought with all this that lenders would be throwing money at us. But the only thing thrown at us was a long list of documents asking our complete financial history for the past five years. I believe they also wanted our blood types, astrological signs and a note from my Mother, but my husband said that was a typing error.

The loan interview took 2 1/2 hours. After we were through, the loan officer knew more about the both of us than we probably knew about each other when we got married. For days afterward I was constantly faxing the loan officer page after page, double-verifying all information given during “The Interrogation.”

Then came the decision on the loan. Remember the house we wanted to raise our children in and grow old in? We were told it might be better to find a home we could have a child in and be happy in for a minimum of five to 10 years.

So our search continued. And eventually we did find a home we liked. After losing two nights’ sleep and experiencing a loss of appetite, my husband and I decided to make an offer. By the time we got through signing all the papers, my hand ached, my head ached and my pocketbook ached, and we still didn’t even know if the offer would be accepted. We are in negotiations now.

Although this has been an experience I would not recommend to anyone, there are moments of excitement that supersede all the endless interrogating and game playing. Like when my husband and I lay awake till 2 a.m. and talk about what color to paint one room or another or what room we will put the nursery in someday.

Nancy Johns and Roger Meeks

EL SEGUNDO

Buying our first home was three-quarters adventure, one-quarter ordeal. We started looking in the summer of 1993. My sister and her daughter were living with us while she was in graduate school at UCLA. We had talked several times about buying a place together, and since my husband was unemployed at the time, this seemed the best alternative to getting out of the rent loop and into the tax-deductible loop.

The following weekend we all went out house-hunting by looking at the newspaper and going to the open houses. We looked at a house that sounded great--but was out of the ballpark in terms of price. Wouldn’t you know, it was perfect.

After several weekends of looking, I decided that it was important that we list our priorities to make sure we could agree on what our needs in a home really were. My sister’s priorities were a little different than ours. She had an elementary-school-age daughter--so the quality of schools was on the top of her list. The funny part was that we did have quite a few items in common: safe neighborhood, plenty of room, lots of storage, at least two bathrooms and a decent yard for our two dogs.

The more we looked, the more we liked that house that was out of our price range. Time passed and we got a call from the real estate agent on our dream house. The price had come down, but even then it was still out of the ballpark for us.

Several more weeks pass and we get another call from the “dream house” agent. The price has come down a final time and there is another buyer interested. She encourages us to come talk to her in her office.

Much discussion ensues. We are 95% sure we want to write an offer. The other party has made an offer. We make a low-ball offer. Then we sit on pins and needles to wait and see. This is a completely nerve-racking time . . . lots of fingernail biting and carbohydrate loading.

The agent calls, the offer has been countered. We counter the counter. We get the call . . . we’re in. We own our dream home!

Tips:

--Really know your real estate agent’s experience/background.

--Know your buying power. Go into this pre-qualified. Sellers are more apt to take lower offers if they know that the prospective buyers are qualified. No seller wants to enter into escrow only to find out their buyers are not qualified.

--Prioritize your needs. This helps you narrow down the important items and keeps you focused on your requirements.

--Get a home inspection, but don’t expect it to find everything. All houses have their little glitches.

--Be more critical of substandard items such as wall repairs that have not been done properly. The same applies to the ceilings.

--Do your research for any environmental hazards that may exist.

--Visit the home during different times of the day to see what types of noise, sunlight and other items might be a deterrent.

--If the house has an alarm system--make sure you get the code and find out how to change the code and operate it.

--Get as much material about the appliances/water purifying systems/automatic watering systems, etc. When our oven did not work we called a repairman, only to find out that one of the buttons was not in the proper position to allow the oven to work!

--Count the number of phone jacks. We were so keyed up on counting the number of electrical outlets that it didn’t even occur to us to look for phone jacks. The house is only 13 years old, but guess what, there were only two phone jacks in the 2,700-square-foot home.

--We moved into a house that had been occupied by smokers and we are nonsmokers. We knew we would have to have the walls and ceilings washed plus all the window coverings but also decided to have the carpets cleaned.

--If you want to save your marriage . . . hire movers!

Christy and Daniel Waters

LOS ANGELES

My husband and I have been married for 6 1/2 years and have been renters. My husband is a route salesman whose income can range from $37,000 to $43,000 a year, and I am a registered nurse, earning about $42,000 a year. We have two small children.

As a young couple we abused our credit, so we could not qualify for a conventional loan. But we recently received a $50,000 settlement from a wrongful injury case--my husband was shot at an ATM in Westchester in 1990 and lost his left eye--and with the settlement money, we figured we could make a large enough down payment to compensate for our poor credit.

What I would tell anyone to do first is know how much you can (and cannot) afford and to get your financing in order.

Our real estate agent (my sister) put us in touch with a mortgage broker in July, 1993. He helped me go over our TRW/Equifax reports and correct errors. After several weeks and several letters/phone calls to our creditors, we had “cleaned-up reports” and we were pre-qualified. . . . Only after all that work was done did we start looking.

I scoured the ads, drove around neighborhoods in Los Angeles looking at houses. I followed another excellent tip: We put on paper the features our home must have--three bedrooms, two baths, detached garage, yard and Spanish-style architecture and in a relatively nice neighborhood, for about $200,000.

Although I found some homes with some of these features, my husband constantly reminded me to stick to my list, and he wouldn’t even look at a house unless it fit with the list. I looked all of August and couldn’t find what we wanted. But I did not give up.

One week I happened to save the large real estate supplement that comes in The Times that features Westside properties. I looked only at ads for homes priced at $225K and less. I came across a small ad that read “Spanish, 3 bdr, guest house, bank owned, $210K.” It sounded interesting, so I called to make an appointment to see it the next day.

Meanwhile, I got the address and drove by. The house was on a great residential street in the Beverlywood area, near Hamilton High School. I had never considered this area, as I thought the homes were far more expensive. Since it was bank owned, it was vacant, and I could look through all the windows. It had all the minimum requirements plus many extras--hardwood floors, French patio doors, with a tall rounded ceiling, recently re-tiled kitchen.

When my sister and I saw the interior, I was amazed. I instantly felt in my heart that this was it! I had never had that feeling with any of the other homes I saw. We showed my husband the house, looked at it two or three times more and we made an offer.

We offered and counter-offered three times, by fax, and our offer of $199,000 was accepted in less than one week. The appraisal came back for $221,000, $21,000 more than our accepted offer. We were thrilled. Comparable homes in our neighborhood sell for $220,000-$250,000.

We had a great first-time experience. I credit it to being prepared and dealing with honest, knowledgeable professionals. We stayed within our means and stuck with our list for what we wanted.

Sharon Gonzalez-Brewer

TUJUNGA

My husband, Lloyd, and I purchased our home about a year and a half ago. Before we were really ready to buy, we did a lot of “drive-bys” and went to a lot of open houses. We spent a lot of time looking for a good general location that would fit our needs, which included: price, nice area for children, as much square footage as we could get for our money and proximity to work. We decided early on that my husband was handy enough to fix anything that I did not like in the house.

The year we were looking was a very rainy year. I highly recommend that before you buy a house, look at the property in the rain. We saw a house a second time in the rain, it changed our minds immediately. The lot was flooded. While the water did not go into the house, the entire front lawn was under water. We also saw a couple of houses with leaky roofs and a roof was not an expense I immediately wanted to deal with.

Another tip: a Title 1 loan for improvements to the house. The loan is 100% tax deductible. We applied early for the loan and we used the money to remodel the kitchen.