How to Avoid the Stress of Affording Your Dream Home

By Tork Media

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How to Avoid the Stress of Affording Your Dream Home

The first home you purchase may or may not be the home of your dreams. When you first purchase, you will likely be thrilled to be out of a rental. However, as time goes on, you may find it becomes a little cramped, or you might want more features than your starter home has. Your starter home was a steppingstone that can help you purchase your dream home.

Start Saving Up

Even though you have been building equity in your current home, you will still want to get your finances in order before you start hunting. It can be difficult to focus on creating your emergency fund or increasing your savings when you are ready to upgrade now. But the basics should be covered before you think about buying another house. If you have debt, it can be hard to get out before you start shopping. That is especially true for student loan debt. The good news is you can still reduce your expenses to put more money away into your house fund. Refinancing your student loan debt can reduce your monthly expenses.

Search for a Dream Home

House hunting can be a fun time to dream about the home you would purchase if money were no object. But it is also important to stay focused on the task at hand. Create a list of the features that you need to create a home buying checklist that would be nice to have. These should be aligned with your lifestyle and what your budget can afford. You shouldn’t compromise on the layout itself and where the home is, especially if you are hoping to stay here for many years. 

A poor location or one that is far away from everything could be a deal breaker since you will get tired of traveling far to get everywhere, and if the layout does not make sense for your lifestyle, you may find yourself moving sooner than you’d hoped. If you have kids or hope to in the future, you should think about the school district you would be in. Just because a home is close to a school does not mean it is the best district for your kids. Even if you do not want kids or plan on homeschooling your own, being in a good district could increase the house’s value when it comes time to sell. 

Think about the amount of space you will need. Of course, your budget will determine how much space you will end up with, but generally, there should be enough to be able to adapt through the seasons. If you have a growing family, a three-bedroom home may not be enough space for all your kids. If you want to have overnight guests frequently, you may want more than one guest bedroom.

Be Patient

Even though stress is a natural part of life and you might be eager to move on, it’s important to be patient and get the right home. Don’t buy something that doesn’t quite meet your needs just because you want to be done looking. It’s important to find a good agent who will keep looking for something that fits into your budget. They should be committed to helping you find your dream home. 

Consider getting approved for a mortgage as well, and if you can, try to go for a 15-year instead of a 30-year. When you are pre-approved for financing, sellers will be more interested in going with your offer if there is more than one offer. Since you will not need to go through the approval process, your information will be in the system already, meaning you will get to closing as soon as possible once the seller accepts your offer.