Home Ownership

[unsunghero]

Originally Posted by Tunabros [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I have no clue how buying houses work

No one taught me this stuff

It’s confusing for me too

A mortgage is just like a really large loan, is the way to look at that. I’m order to qualify for a big one, one needs to have decent-good credit. The way to get good credit is to borrow money via loans or credit cards and be Johnny-on-the-spot with making payments, or else the serious people just put a large sum on a card and then immediately pay it off

You normally need to put down 20% of the home price as a down payment, which is out of reach of juuuust about everyone. Luckily the government offers a one time First Home Buyer (FHA) loan where you only have to put down 3.5% of the price. These are basically the only way most people could ever get their first house

But it’ll cost you in the long run, it’s not free money. If you put down less than 20% down payment, you will have to pay an additional interest payment each month until you get to above 20% down (technically you need to still re-finance which is essentially selling the mortgage to a different lender at a lower insurance rate and payment, ignore this though if this is sounding too complicated)

You need to get a real estate agent to make an offer on a home, and if it’s accepted, it goes to an inspection period where an appraiser makes sure it’s actually close to the value of its price. You and your real estate agent get the inspection report, and decide based on it if you still want to buy, and what repairs you want to see done before you buy. The repairs don’t have to be actually done, if not, then the cost of the repair would be taken out of the price. If you accept then it goes to a closing date where the title is transferred via a title company

The handy thing is, things like home insurance and property taxes are bundled right into the mortgage. So it’s just one thing you have to pay each month

The TLDR: Do an FHA loan to only have to put 3.5% down, then re-finance once you get to having paid 20% down (will take a number of years unless you come into extra money), to get the monthly payment hundreds of dollars lower (usually)