First-Time Homebuyer
Proximity to friends and to MARTA led Michael and Katrina Cox to focus their home search on Dunwoody. The couple, who got married in 2010, were living in an apartment in Brookhaven, and they found Dunwoody offered a suburban feel without being too far from the city.
Michael, 33, a copier salesman for Standard Office Systems, and Katrina, 28, an accountant at Georgia-Pacific, chatted about their home.
Q: How did you search?
Katrina: We looked online for months, so we kind of knew everything that was in Dunwoody. We got a Realtor [Tom Novak with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage] and went one day and looked at four houses. The one we ended up buying was the fourth one we looked at.
Q: What did you want in a home?
Katrina: Mike really wanted a basement. That was a big deal to him. The standard house in our price range was four bedrooms, two or three baths.
Q: What’s one feature that impressed you?
Katrina: The last room we walked into downstairs is the family room, and there are big windows across the back of the wall, where it looks out over the backyard.
Q: What did you envision for the basement?
Michael: What I envision is having a bar and a place to kind of hang out with friends and family, with a nice-sized TV, and then also an area to have a workout room.
Q: Had the sellers made updates to the home?
Katrina: They painted everything. Everything else was 10 to 20 years old.
Q: Did you factor in the cost of potential repairs?
Michael: We kind of knew that we would eventually want to replace. I had a pretty good idea of how much that would cost. We didn’t want to pay what they were asking for because there were a lot of updates that needed to be done.
Q: How did the negotiations play out?
Katrina: Their Realtor was thinking that the house was around $5,000 more than we ended up paying. We ended up meeting in the middle of what their Realtor and what we wanted to pay.
Michael: The negotiations were definitely stressful. Tom did a fantastic job. When it came to the negotiation, he really fought for us.
Q: Have you made any changes to the home?
Michael: The seller fixed everything we asked for [after the inspection]. Minor things were having an expansion tank put on the water heater to fit to code.
Katrina: We had to buy new appliances. We’ve had some master bathroom [repairs] where the toilet stopped working and the tub leaked.
Q: What’s your best tip for other buyers?
Michael: Get multiple quotes from as many [mortgage lenders] as you can possibly stand and pit them against each other.
At a Glance
Michael and Katrina Cox’s home, built in 1969 in Dunwoody’s Fontainebleau neighborhood, has four bedrooms, three baths and about 2,576 square feet. They purchased it in August. Homes in the neighborhood range from $220,000-$350,000.
