Dear Pennies & Pens,
A few weeks ago, I made the decision to buy my first house. Now, here’s the thing, I am still in the initial stages of becoming a homeowner. What I mean is buying a house is a process. There’s so much that goes into it!
Not only do you need to be financially stable, you should also have money saved for the down payment, closing costs, repairs, etc. Furthermore, you should also have a team such as a realtor, mortgage loan officer, and home inspector.
When I first started this process, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I just knew that I was sick of living in an apartment and since my lease is almost up, I was ready for a change. However, upon conducting tons of research and talking to associates in the real estate industry, I realized that this is going to be a process.
And there is no need to rush it. I also realized that there are probably a lot of people like me. People who want to purchase a home but have no idea what the process entails. Or people who have hurdles like bad credit, not enough money for a down payment, or don’t know anyone who is a homeowner.
So I decided to create this blog/vlog series to document my process of buying my first home. I want to make it clear that I’m nowhere near perfect as far as being a homeowner is concerned. I have a low credit score and inconsistent credit history; I still need more time to save money for the costs associated with buying a home and I’m just genuinely freaked out about it.
Once I started to dive into the process, I came up with some interesting results. First, while doing research, I accidentally applied for pre-approval (note: to get a loan to purchase a home, you must be pre approved first. It is bad to seek pre-approval before you’re ready because they do a hard credit check which lowers your credit score and since my credit score is already on life support, this didn’t help). I also met one of the rudest realtors I’ve ever met who proceeded to give a lecture on how I wasn’t ready to buy a home even though I already knew that.
So anyway, in the video below, I talk about why I decided to buy my first house and I go into detail about my initial process. Right now, I’m just doing research as far as reading books about home ownership, assembling my team (I already have a realtor and mortgage loan officer, yay!), and researching the housing market in Dallas.
This process will happen over the next year or so because as I said, this is a process and I’m not rushing. I still need to improve my credit and save some serious pennies before I can make this dream a reality.
Check out the video below and share your thoughts on home ownership in the comments!
And there it is. de la Pen…All Pen Everything. With us, keeping it real never goes wrong.
