How to Prepare to Buy Your First Home

So, you’re going to buy your first home. First off, congratulations! Buying your first home is an important step in your life. It’s something you can leave your children, and a place you can always return to. You won’t have to fear landlords raising the rent on a whim, or refusing to renew your contract because a richer client came along. You won’t have to worry about protecting your security deposit. It’s a little oasis of stability. But, you have to prepare for it – the risks are too high otherwise! You want your first home to be a stepping stone to greater things, not a mistake that can put you in the hole financially. So, how do you do that? How do you make sure you’re ready to buy your first home?

Decide if you’re ready to buy your first home

Owning a home is a lot more expensive than renting. However, it is a lot more rewarding, especially in the long term! But, are you financially stable enough to do it? After all, a bad purchase is very difficult to bounce back from and can set you back considerably. You have to think about everything that’s suddenly your problem! Just as you have to research the best Brooklyn movers, you have to research the best way to buy a house.

• There’s no landlord to rely on when it comes to making repairs. You have to figure everything out yourself – and pay for it!
• You have to calculate your mortgage – and pay for it! That includes holding down a steady job that will let you afford it. Of course, places can get pretty severe about missed payments, so you should know you can hold down your job while you’re paying the mortgage. Buying real estate is serious!
• You have to figure out how taxes would work – and property taxes vary from place to place. This is especially important if you’re moving long distance – if you’re moving to Chicago from NYC, for example, expect different taxes.
• You need to get out of debt. This is the most important step in buying a home. After all, the mortgage is even more debt, and debt acquires the interest, and before you know it you’ll be drowning in debt! It can get so bad you’re spending all your money just to keep the accumulating interest at bay, instead of paying off the debt amount!

How should you treat your first home?

House-flipping shows have made everyone convinced they’re some light repair work away from scoring a hundred thousand dollars. This isn’t true. You shouldn’t treat your first home as a flip-house, or a project, or an investment. This is, after all, your first time buying a home. You’re inexperienced! You don’t know what you’re getting into! And, especially if you’re moving a long distance to your home, you don’t know how you’ll manage your new neighborhood. So, expecting to make a boatload of money on your first home is not very likely. This is why Brooklyn real estate analysis is important. Only buy the home you can afford.

Of course, it can be difficult to buy the home you can afford if you want more space. No one wants to live in clutter – and many people dream of luxurious first homes where they can sprawl out with all of their belongings. That’s completely understandable, but don’t despair if you can’t buy that extra bedroom! You can downsize your belongings without getting rid of them if you invest in public storage New York. It’s a lot cheaper than buying a bigger house!

Plus, you can’t buy your first house and move on your own at the same time. Buying a home is a long, involved process. The last thing you want to do is to plan a move while planning to buy a house! This is where movers NYC come in – it helps more than you’d think to have a bunch of trained professionals on your side.

What do you need to do to buy your first home?

First things first. It’s vitally important to build up an emergency fund. Accidents happen. You could get a freak weather storm that busts up all your windows. You could get into a car accident. Or, you could develop a serious illness, like cancer or diabetes. Medical treatment is very expensive, and it often leads to bankruptcy. If you have an emergency fund, you can stop that, or at least mitigate the damage. You don’t want to buy your first home only to immediately sell it because your family got seriously ill!

So, after you have a small emergency fund, you have to get all your finances in order. Unless you’re seriously rich, you have to shop around for a loan! You have to check your credit store – if you want to buy your first home, you have to have good credit. Unfortunately, if you’ve married someone with bad credit, both of your credit scores will get considered, so it won’t be super easy. But, you can always look up tips to boost your credit score!

You have to examine your first home thorougly

The sad truth is, many people believe that there’s a sucker born every minute. Don’t be the sucker. You have to do a thorough inspection yourself. The worst thing you could possibly do is to buy your first home without laying eyes on it. Of course, sellers are legally bound to disclose problems that they know of…if they know of them. So, if you discover a nest of termites after you close on the house? Whoops, the past owner had no idea! You’re out of luck! This is why you have to inspect everything – check for vermin, check the wiring, check the pipes, everything you can think of. You have to pay for a home inspection – a professional will do it better than you will, and you’ll get a paper trail! Get an independent inspector and not one provided by the house sellers.