First Time Home Buyers - Avoid This Mistake When Buying Your First Home!
As a first time home-buyer there are a lot of things that can overwhelm you other than just finding the right home.
You need to make sure you are following the necessary steps in the logical, desired order.
You obviously need to determine where you want to live and when and then allow enough time to accomplish this.
More importantly sit down and figure out how much you can budget each month towards all housing expenses, i.
e.
principle and interest payment, taxes, homeowner's insurance, and if you don't have 15-20% of the money needed to put down towards the home, you also have to budget for monthly mortgage insurance.
Your other maintenance costs of the home, utilities, electricity, heat, garbage, etc.
are also considerably higher.
Main point being, if things are tight renting and the mortgage payment alone is going to be higher, you are probably looking at too much house.
This is the point I want to make about avoiding one of the biggest mistakes home-buyers make: You must meet with a trusted Mortgage Professional BEFORE you meet with a Realtor.
Before you look at homes it only makes sense to know if you are even qualified to look at those homes.
You end up wasting your time and that Realtor's time.
If a Realtor goes out and shows you homes without asking you if you are Pre-Qualified with a mortgage professional, you might want to consider looking for a different Realtor also as they aren't doing their due diligence to make sure they have a credit-worthy buyer.
The mortgage professional will determine first if your credit is worthy of obtaining a home mortgage.
They will also determine if your debt-to-income ratio is in line with the amount that you should be paying or budgeting towards each month.
They will help get a personal understanding of you short and long-term goals and figure out the best plan and not just rate on your mortgage for your family.
Once they have determined that you are a credit worthy buyer and have helped you narrow down the amount that you want to pay each month, they can then give you the price points for homes you should be targeting and you can move forward with confidence with that Realtor now and truly enjoy looking at each home a little more stress free!! Enjoy the process as it is very fun and rewarding especially as mortgage rates are great and home prices are attractive!
You need to make sure you are following the necessary steps in the logical, desired order.
You obviously need to determine where you want to live and when and then allow enough time to accomplish this.
More importantly sit down and figure out how much you can budget each month towards all housing expenses, i.
e.
principle and interest payment, taxes, homeowner's insurance, and if you don't have 15-20% of the money needed to put down towards the home, you also have to budget for monthly mortgage insurance.
Your other maintenance costs of the home, utilities, electricity, heat, garbage, etc.
are also considerably higher.
Main point being, if things are tight renting and the mortgage payment alone is going to be higher, you are probably looking at too much house.
This is the point I want to make about avoiding one of the biggest mistakes home-buyers make: You must meet with a trusted Mortgage Professional BEFORE you meet with a Realtor.
Before you look at homes it only makes sense to know if you are even qualified to look at those homes.
You end up wasting your time and that Realtor's time.
If a Realtor goes out and shows you homes without asking you if you are Pre-Qualified with a mortgage professional, you might want to consider looking for a different Realtor also as they aren't doing their due diligence to make sure they have a credit-worthy buyer.
The mortgage professional will determine first if your credit is worthy of obtaining a home mortgage.
They will also determine if your debt-to-income ratio is in line with the amount that you should be paying or budgeting towards each month.
They will help get a personal understanding of you short and long-term goals and figure out the best plan and not just rate on your mortgage for your family.
Once they have determined that you are a credit worthy buyer and have helped you narrow down the amount that you want to pay each month, they can then give you the price points for homes you should be targeting and you can move forward with confidence with that Realtor now and truly enjoy looking at each home a little more stress free!! Enjoy the process as it is very fun and rewarding especially as mortgage rates are great and home prices are attractive!
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