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Serious question. What do you need? Whats involved/the process? Is the sticker price on Zillow the actual price or are there other financial things to be factored into the monthly cost (besides utilities, cable, obviously)? How do you calculate the monthly cost? Looking at houses around the low-mid 100,000s.
Since you don't have cash, you need to talk to a local lender to see what you can qualify for.
Yes, there definitely are first time homebuyer classes. There are classes geared towards young, low-income buyers. All kinds of programs out there. You'll need to look for what's offered in your specific city/area.
Visit the Real Estate forum, and the Mortgage subforum.
There is a wealth of info here on City Data.
There are also plenty of books on the subject, which you can find at your local public library.
Take your time and educate yourself before you go out to buy a house. For most people, this is the single costliest item they will ever buy; mistakes are costly!
I don't think he'll give you $20,000 cash though. I guess you could get a section 8 voucher?? I don't know how that works.
IME, caring for 3 kids is a LOT harder than saving $20K...
Visit the Frugal Living subforum
Free housing, tax credits, food stamps, free internet, cell phone, free healthcare, a brand new car and any other assistance out there..Im sure it all amounts to $20,000 pretty quickly. It almost literally doesn't make since for a young single person to work to earn the things they want these days .
Yes, there definitely are first time homebuyer classes. There are classes geared towards young, low-income buyers. All kinds of programs out there. You'll need to look for what's offered in your specific city/area.
Visit the Real Estate forum, and the Mortgage subforum.
There is a wealth of info here on City Data.
Thats a relief to know, I just hope those type of progtams are available in FL. Do you know how I would search for something like that? Are the usually offered through the banks, libraries, or...??
Where the bleep does a person in their late 20s get $20,000?! cash..to put down on a house???
By saving VERY aggressively, for years.
And it's important to have a sizable down payment, because it helps protect you from owing more on your mortgage than the house is worth (known as being "upside down"). Housing prices don't always go up! Sometimes they go down, and if you owe more money to the bank than you can get from the sale of your house and you need to move, you can be trapped. You can't sell the house unless you can pay the bank the difference. If you put $5,000 down on your $100,000 house and the value of that house has declined to $85,000, you'll owe the bank $10,000 if you sell it. Don't have $10,000 saved up? Well, you can't sell the house. If you'd put $20,000 down and the house is now worth $85,000, you'll get $5,000 back from the sale (ignoring closing costs). Losing $15,000 hurts, but at least you can move if you really need to.
Where the bleep does a person in their late 20s get $20,000?! cash..to put down on a house??? Ohhh man. If thats the case then Im just going to pop out 3 kids and ride the Obama gravy train with the best of them......
I am 29 with $30,000 but no way I am buying a house, they cost too much here. How? Well, I saved it up over the last 7-8 years, does that answer your question?
Just a note on Zillow since the OP brought it up as her listing source in the first post.
First of all, part of Zillow's business model is to sell advertising space to Real Estate Agents. It is done in a manner that leads users to believe that the agent(s) that appear with the listing are somehow "officially" connected to the listing. They are not. It is a misleading practice.
Zillow's so called Zestimate can be highly inaccurate or spot on. You as the user have no way to determine which it is.
Some Multiple Listing Services (MLS) are currently at war with Zillow and some of the other real estate web sites. They have managed to keep Zillow from getting a useful level of access to their listings. Unless you are quite familiar with the local real estate scene, you have no way of knowing if Zillow's listings are anywhere near up to date. It's safest to assume they aren't.
Most MLSes have a public gateway. The three I use all provide more and better info than either Zillow, Trulia, or Realtor.com.
BTW, Realtor.com is the quasi official web site of the National Association of Realtors. It is actually owned by NewsCorp, one of Rupert Murdoch's companies. It recently underwent a change, which rendered it next to useless, with many of its search features now gone.
Try to find out if the MLSes (there may be more than one) serving the area you are interested have a public gateway. If one exists, learn how to use it and avoid Zillow and the other national listing sites.
Where the bleep does a person in their late 20s get $20,000?! cash..to put down on a house??? Ohhh man. If thats the case then Im just going to pop out 3 kids and ride the Obama gravy train with the best of them......
Work? Aggressive Savings? Not spending your money on stupid crap?
When I was 27, I put ~$40K down on a condo. Just recently, at age 34, I put ~100K down on a house.
How did I buy a house? Well first things first was to make a budget. I looked at towns I was interested in and did some research on utility costs, taxes, and plugged numbers around for weeks to determine just how much home I could afford. I got very handy with a mortgage calculator, and always remember to factor in closing costs on top of your down payment as well, or you'll wind up short on funds.
Also remember things like real estate taxes, and home insurance in your monthly payment. As also keep in mine RE taxes go up. Figure an extra $30-50/month or so increase each year...like rent
Once you've figure out your max monthly payment that you can manage while still paying your other expenses, visit with a mortgage broker and see if you can get approved. If you get approved for more, that doesn't mean you should buy a more expensive house. Just stick to your budget and what you calculated out.
After that, talk with a realtor, or go to some open houses and see what your price range actually gets you. Look at 10-20-30 houses or more. Get a fee for what is typical in the price range. Get a realty app on your phone, save some of the houses you like and see how quickly they sell. This should all start to paint a picture in your head as to what houses sell fast at what price, and which ones are overpriced.
Good luck
Last edited by BostonMike7; 01-28-2016 at 08:57 AM..
Thats a relief to know, I just hope those type of progtams are available in FL. Do you know how I would search for something like that? Are the usually offered through the banks, libraries, or...??
The FHA has a first time home buyer program. It's Federal so you have access to it anywhere in the country. It's designed for people with limited down payment savings and less than perfect credit. If you have a 580 credit score, you can buy a house with 3 1/2 percent down and borrow all the closing costs. If you can come up with 5% down and pay your own closing costs, you're far better off with a conventional mortgage product. In a "hot" housing market, a seller won't want to sell to you because FHA loans take much longer to process. They'd much rather sell to somebody putting 20% or more down.
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