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Rising Star
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Anybody get to play golf for work?
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Stock market melts down.
Rising Star
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Anybody get to play golf for work?
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why dont you savor, close it, move in and enjoy for a nano second first. plenty of time to think about first-time owner issues! assume you have a realtor/agent who will handle all the work for the commission you pay. and congratulations!
Enthusiast
Haha, hope you have a good lawyer. From my experiences, certain chaotic s*** always finds it's way into home closings. Also, pray all of the parties involved are honest and transparent. Alternatively, it may all go smoothly. But hell, just tell your parents, they'll find out eventually. Perhaps they'll have a couple of insights. Why chance potentially getting screwed?
Chief
Inspection, inspection, inspection
And don’t buy any big ticket item or open cc until everything is final
Something major will break. You will need to go to home depot wayyyyyy more than you think you do.
Pro
What kind of help do you get from a hardware store employee that you can't get from the internet?
Chief
I just closed last month! First thing you need to do is choose a lender. Start gathering all your important documents like last 2 paystubs, last 2 years work experience and the HR contacts who can verify, last 2 years tax returns) you will send all these to lender and it takes about a month usually to close. Also work with your real estate agent to plan an inspection early on. You then use this and the appraisal to renegotiate price in your favor. Be prepared to walk away if the house has serious issues and seller won’t pay. Do a radon and meth test. It is extra but very important. Also you’ll need to choose your home insurance. Know that closing costs are more expensive than you think. So sometimes it’s worth it to choose a higher interest rate and get a higher closing cost deduction. Or sometimes you want to pay more to lock down a lower interest rate. But you have to have closing costs plus your down payment sitting in your bank ready to be transferred out at closing.
And congrats on closing!
If you’ll have a yard, get a land survey. I almost got shorted a considerable amount of land. I would have never known about the encroachment
Property taxes were worse than I thought 🥲 depends on area though
How would you not know about the taxes going in?
Your appraisal should have a $ figure for estimated taxes not to mention the fact that you can just look up what they are for past years online.
Congrats!!🎊🍾
Congrats! A lot of the stuff above is true but something very special about coming to your house and it being yours
You will get to know the people at Home Depot very well.
Enthusiast
During closing there is a lot of last minute things requested for the mortgage. Closing is stressful.
See if you can negotiate for the sellers to pay for a home warranty, or if not, buy one yourself. Will give you piece of mind and help avoid major expenses the first year.
Agree with others about going to home depot a ton. Try to knock out all the projects you want done asap, otherwise you'll end up just living with it forever 😅
Enthusiast
Yeah I feel like closing costs vary wildly depending on the situation. Your lender/ broker should be able to give you an estimate for that particular house. In my experience they'll lookup the taxes, hoa, etc for you to factor in.
Rising Star
Set aside a cash pile for home maintenance and improvements. Consider it like an asset management project and this is your cap ex budget. Expenses will come up that you don't anticipate, but the more planning you do, the less anxiety you'll have. Finally, congrats!
INSPECTION!!! Anything that is wonky make sure you get it in writing ! I’m dealing with a roof leak rn that the seller promised me was fixed before closing and here we are 1 year later
Do not put every penny you have towards the down payment. Closing costs are a biotch. On our new build, at 730am before 10 am closing 90 minutes away I was asked to bring a check for $800 for a MAILBOX. Whatever bs they told me it couldn’t be rolled into the closing costs and part of the loan but paid in cash. We were able to do it but I know plenty of folks who bring everything they have tto closing and wouldn’t have been able to take on a last minute cost like this. Always always always have a buffer fund available.
Pro
Congrats on getting approved for a home and at 25! I couldn’t have even dreamed about getting a one at that age.
I currently own two homes; one was brand new when I bought it and my current one was built in 1982. Make sure you have have enough money left over after closing to pay for major appliances. If the place you are buying has appliances, physically check to see if they work. Believe me, a new washing machine, new fridge, a stove hood, etc… it all adds up and most home inspectors aren’t going to check the full function of appliances. So CHECK everything when you do your walkthrough and shop around for highly rated inspectors.
Shop around for insurance. A lot of insurance companies will bundle your vehicle insurance with home insurance for a reduced cost. I use Allstate and they brought down my car insurance and quoted me exceptionally low for my place.
Even if the home is new, stuff breaks all the time and hiring a repairman can get super pricey (unless you know someone). I will use an example- I clogged my sink recently because I was stupid and put bread in my disposal. To have a local plumber unclog the sink would have cost $75 just for them to come out and probably about $50 - $100 to do the job. Instead, I took some channel locks and unscrewed the fitting under the sink and clear the pipe myself for a grand total of $0 and in 5 mins. Point I am trying to make is get very familiar with YouTube and Google on how to fix things yourself or created a slush fund to hire someone to do it for you because either way stuff is going to break, I promise you that. If you want to go the route of fixing things yourself, invest in good tools.
See if your county has property tax exemptions. You can talk to your mortgage bank about this or go to your town hall, or look online. Also, look in the future to pay a little extra on your mortgage to bring down that principal payment. 30 years is a long time so anything extra will cut down that burden. Lastly, your home is an investment so make upgrades when you can because chances are you will sell this place one day and you always want to come out on top but will have to lowball if you didn’t take care of the home or make any upgrades while you lived there.
Those are just a few things of the top of my head. Feel free to DM me if you have any questions.
This was so helpful!! Thank you so much :)
There are a lot of things to watch out for. Some will hurt in the short-term (unexpected problems or needing to buy things you never thought of), however, you will never rent a place again. If you think about it that way, then it’s fairly obvious that it all works out in the end.
Enthusiast
Congratulations!
Well, buyer’s inspection is dog poop and everything will break down. Just keep a good chunk of change in case anything breaks and always get 3 or more quotes before committing.
Oh also, shop for mortgages. You can still shop for better rates after your offer is accepted.