Are You Ready to Buy Your First Home?

Are You Ready to Buy Your First Home?

Regardless of your age when it happens, buying your first house produces a feeling that could only be compared to a few other experiences in life. Your home is a part of who you are. It becomes the scenery behind your family pictures.

When my wife and I decided we would like to have a baby, we made the decision to create the best environment we could for the child first. For the two of us, that meant getting out of our two bedroom apartment and buying a home our family could grow in.

We both had above average credit, a career position that came with both great pay and benefits, and we had both been with the same employer for at least two years. The two of us had been able to provide a solid foundation, but we also knew there was much more that needed to be done.

 

Being prepared

Both us received a copy of our credit reports and went over the preexisting debt we had. There wasn’t much, but we wanted to eliminate as much as possible. We made the decision that for the next three months, we would use every penny we had towards paying off as much of the debt as possible.

Once we were both happy with the results of our hard work, we went from paying off debt mode to saving as much as possible. In order to have a lower monthly payment towards the mortgage, we knew we would need to come up with as much as possible for a down payment

On top of that, we also knew there would be a few expenses that came with buying our first home we missed when putting our costs together. Some of our furniture would be making the trip with us, but there was a lot we were going to add. We made sure to include things we would both need and want for the home in our budget.

Once we had accumulated what we thought would be more than enough to cover all of the original expenses of buying and moving into our first home, we sat down to make a list of what we could realistically afford when it came to a monthly payment. We knew there was going to be an addition to the family soon, so we would need to leave room for the expenses that would come with having a child.

We did the best we could to plan for everything. Car payments, utility bills, diapers, if we were going to need it, the name was on our list. We spent a week doing some research and finally came up with a number which made sense for the goals of our family.

 

Finding a home

We scheduled an appointment with a realtor and made sure we brought all of our homework with us. The realtor made sure we knew how impressed she was with our preparations. She told us if all of her customers would take the time to do what we had done, her job would be much easier.

Are You Ready to Buy Your First Home?

Within just ten days we had found the house that we were going to call home. Thirty three days later when we spent our first night in the house, I was given the best housewarming gift ever. My wife let me know that she was almost three months pregnant.