Three Quick Tips For Getting Ready To Buy A Home
While starting the process of buying a home may seem easy when all one needs to do is click to a local Cincinnati real estate website and start browsing homes, the process is a bit more involved than that. There will be a variety of homes in many different price points. Prior to even getting serious about a home the home buyer needs to follow the below steps to make sure the process starts off successfully.
Step 1. Understand Your Budget
Everyone should have a good grasp of their budget including their debts and monthly expenses. A house payment can take up a large portion of a homeowner’s budget. Buying a home that puts the mortgage expense at the top end of the budget can lead to problems down the line when other expenses increase. Especially in an inflationary environment like we have today in 2022 the cost of daily items like groceries, utility bills, gas and more keep going up. So once where a budget was perfect with the exact amount of money coming in as going out is now a disaster since things cost more.
Even with a fixed interest rate mortgage the payments for a house can go up. Especially if the homeowner is escrowing their tax and insurance payments as taxes and insurance rates go up on the home so will the monthly payment. Even for those who are not escrowing tax and insurance payments if those go up they have to get paid regardless if the budget can cover it or not.
Home buyers need to understand their overall financial picture...
Tips For Millennial First Time Home Buyers
Buying a home may seem like a daunting task with many extra expenses involved and plenty of other hurdles to overcome. In reality buying a home has never been cheaper due to low interest rates and never been easier with access to everything you need to buy a home via the internet. As a Millennial First Time Home Buyer there are many programs and opportunities to help you get into a home and get away from renting.
Saving Up For A Down Payment
Saving up for a down payment is something that can easily be done once you have an idea of how much home you can afford after getting a pre-approval statement a mortgage lender. The key for saving up enough money for your down payment is to do it well ahead of the actual home purchase and make your savings plan an automatic plan that fits into your budget. Yes you must budget, set aside money to save for your down payment which can run anywhere from 3.5% of your home purchase price and up plus closing costs.
If your employer offers it having a portion of your paycheck get directly deposited into a separate savings account is a good way to start saving your down payment. If you don’t have that option then some saving accounts offer the ability to automatically withdraw money from an account, so you can withdraw money from your main account on a regular basis into a savings account so that money is separate from your main spending money. The idea is to setup a regular savings program so money moves automatically and is kept separately in a different account so there is less temptation to use the money.
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