F O R F I R S T - T I M E H O M E B U Y E R S

TOP F INANCE T IPS

  JOHN J . BOWMAN, JR .  

Buying your f i rs t home can be a s t ressfu l process . But i t doesn ’ t have to be .  The best way to e l iminate s t ress i s to do your research .  I f you do enough research then your home buy ing exper ience wi l l be smooth and as s t ress- f ree as poss ib le .  The next s l ides feature some of the top f inance t ips for f i rs t - t ime homebuyers .

OVERVIEW

Knowing your cred i t score i s the f i rs t s tep to purchas ing a home.  Some people mis takenly bel ieve that pay ing your cred i t card b i l l on t ime each month automat ica l ly means you wi l l have a good cred i t score . However , you a lso have to cons ider how much debt you car ry month-to-month in re la t ion to your income.  There are many f ree cred i t repor ts on l ine that you can cons ider .  Once you have your repor t you need to look i t over to make sure there aren ’ t any mis takes .  I f your cred i t i s damaged then you wi l l need to repa i r i t before search ing for a home.

WHAT’S YOUR CREDIT SCORE?

Before you can purchase a home you need to know where your money goes each month .  Mortgage lenders wi l l look at your income in order to determine whether they wi l l g ive you a loan or not . Therefore , i t ’ s not a bad idea to create a budget and t rack your money each month .   Creat ing a budget wi l l g ive you a bet ter idea of how much you save each month , and i t w i l l he lp you e l iminate unnecessary expenses .Remember that i f you l ive paycheck-to- paycheck the home buy ing process wi l l be d i f f icu l t .  

KNOW YOUR BUDGET

One of the f i rs t s teps to buy ing a home is determin ing how much you can af ford to spend .  Bankrate has a usefu l ca lcu lator that w i l l he lp you determine how much money you can spend on a home.  By enter ing your month ly income and th ings l i ke your cred i t card b i l l s , the ca lcu lator w i l l g ive you a he lpfu l est imate of how expens ive of a house you can af ford and the month ly mortgage payment you can af ford .

ESTIMATE YOUR COSTS

The more money you can put down on a house the bet ter .  Th is i s why i t ’ s a good idea to create a month ly budget when you f i rs t s tar t th ink ing about buy ing a house .  Fo l lowing a budget each month wi l l he lp you qu ick ly save for a down payment .  Many lenders won ’ t even work wi th buyers who can ’ t a f ford to put down at least twenty percent of the home’s ask ing pr ice .  However , there are some programs that ass is t buyers who cannot prov ide enough of a down payment .

DOWN PAYMENT