Find Your New Home in Cedar Falls/Waterloo for under $150K

You know the saying, "it isn't a great market to buy a house right now." Is it just me or have you heard that saying your entire life? I can probably count on one hand how many times I've heard "it's a great buyers market." If you are looking to buy your first house, a house to rent out to tenants, or buy something small and fix it up into your dream home, you have a wide range of options here. Houses that range from $40K all the way up to what we set our limit at of $150K. If you can spend more, that's awesome, but if you're looking to start smaller, maybe even safer on the wallet, you can check out these Cedar Falls and Waterloo homes.

After recently purchasing my first house, I had no clue what I was doing going into it. My fiance and I didn't even really look at pictures of the place before we visited. We got very lucky and ended up in a great situation, mostly because our realtor was amazing. I'm here to help show you some of the more affordable options in the area and where to start looking if this is in your price range.

Some great advice when looking at a home for the first time

1. Don't worry about the paint. You can always change the paint later if you don't like what is there now.

2. Don't just trust the pictures, good or bad. Sometimes you'll find a house that looks amazing on the internet and show up only to find things are falling apart, rooms don't look as big as you thought, or the pictures are 10 years old. This works both ways, you may see something that doesn't look great on camera, only to find out it's actually really nice. It's best to make a list of all your different options and go from there. That leads too...

3. Shop around. This can't be stressed enough. Unless you visit a house that is too perfect, you should check out as many different options as you can, and make a pros and cons list.

4. Ask a ton of questions. There are no dumb questions when buying a house. I didn't know what refinancing really meant until I had a realtor explain it to me.

FYI it means this "Refinancing your mortgage basically means that you are trading in your old mortgage for a new one, and possibly a new balance"

5. Try and have fun with it. If you're getting ready to buy a home, it's going to be stressful and a lot of work. Just to fill out the paperwork and sign everything takes forever. Try to remember how exciting it is and what a great opportunity you have to start a new chapter of your life.