What Do You Need To Know Before Buying A Home?
Buying a home starts with educating yourself about the process. And education can mean the difference between making solid fact based decisions and making significant errors …show more content…
Check your credit reports at all three credit bureaus here: Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. Your credit score weighs heavily on the mortgage approval process. You should start now doing everything you can to raise your credit score before starting the home buying process. This can be done by paying your bills on time and paying off your debts, or paying them down until they are less than 30 percent of your credit limits. You should also check your credit reports for accuracy. And avoid opening any lines of new credit during this time as lenders don't like to see multitudes of inquires on your credit …show more content…
will probably increase each year, which means your monthly mortgage payment will increase each year as well.
What Steps Will Prepare You For Buying A Home?
Now that you have your financial house in order, or at least know what you have to do to get your financial house in order, it's time to take the next steps in preparing to buy your new home. Here are a few things you can do to help determine if you are truly ready to buy a home.
You can start to practice making a house payment. Take the monthly amount of what you estimate your monthly mortgage payment to be and pay your rent out of that, then take the rest and put it into your down payment account. That means if your estimated mortgage amount is $1,000 and your rent is $800, you will take $200 each month and put it into your savings account. This will tell you if you are ready to buy a house and it will also serve as proof to a lender that you have the ability to make higher monthly mortgage