Young Family is Buying a First Home Together

A Home Buying Article Contributed by Marcie Holley

A Young Family is Buying a First Home Together. Let's Look at How They Do.

A husband, his wife and their 2 children have decided that instead of living in an apartment, that they are buying a first home. Let's follow them through this, their first venture into the world of first time home ownership.

They've been saving as much money as they can. They aren't about the continue paying over $1, 000 00 a month to someone else. They've been scouring through the local newspapers, looking in the classified section under Homes For Sale. They just don't know how to make sense of the real estate market. So they start asking their friends & relatives who've bought houses to recommend a Realtor. As it turns out, they all used the same real estate company, though not the same agent.

The couple decide that this is good enough for them & they know that the company has an excellent reputation and a very good track record. The company was nationwide, but they found out that the local office was only a few miles away. They considered this to be a plus. It meant that the agents knew the area, the schools, the people, the rules & regulations, etc.

The Couple Then Called the Real Estate Company, Explaining That They Were Buying a First Home.

The agent that answered the call asked what the young woman's name & phone number were, how many people were in her family & how she came to call upon them for buying a home?

She'd explained that she, her husband & their 2 children were living in an apartment & had decided that buying a home was better than paying all that money for rent. The agent readily agreed with her, saying that rents were indeed very high and that buying a home certainly made more financial sense than continuing to pay rent.

The agent pulled out his appointment book and proceeded to set up an appointment for the couple to come in 3 days later.

Knowing What You're Looking for is the Most Important Aspect in Buying a Home.

When the couple came in to see their agent 3 days later, he had all the necessary papers ready. The only constant in real estate is that the deal is never done until all the paperwork is done & sometimes not even then.

The couple sat down and started going through the paperwork. There were income statements to fill out, this is what the agent would use to determine exactly how much this young couple could afford to spend on their new house.

When they asked him about this, he explained that he would use this information to determine what they could afford to pay for their first home. He had also explained that the rule of thumb was that only 28% of their annual income should go toward their housing. They were surprised to learn that.

The young woman then asked about the financial benefits of owning their own home were. The agent proceeded to explain that for the first 5 years of home ownership the interest on their mortgage was tax deductible. They didn't know that either.