What are the things I need to consider before buying a new house?

Answer 1

cost, location, motives

Answer 2

I am a certified Mortgage Planner and this is how I counsel my clients.

The 3 C's
Capacity - you need to know what you can afford on a monthly basis for your PITI (Principal, Interest, Taxes and Insurance) payment. Taxes and insurance are a variable that comes with the home you purchase, but you have an idea based on the area you are looking at and you can ask your insurance person about approximate costs of homeowners insurance based on that.

Now you need to know how to calculate what you can really afford, the lender will base it on GROSS capacity - the gross amount you make each month and then subtract the monthly debts that show up on your credit report. You can have a debt to income ratio as high as 55% with subprime lenders, conventional will be about 43%. (The next C will determine where you fall in the lending strata - follow me here LOL).

I am different, a planner determines your NET capacity, what you can really afford based on what you bring home and removing your monthly obligations (child care, eyebrow waxing, groceries, gas, etc.). We then subtract an additional 10% for play money and what is left is what you should realistically have available for a mortgage payment. I will tell you, it is a drastic difference. BUT, if you want to own a home and KEEP the home, this is the smartest way to do it.

Second is Credit - where you sit with your credit score is a driving factor for the loan strata you will be in and what % of loan to value (how much of the purchase price) the lender will offer. The higher the score, the better the terms you will get. You can obtain a copy of your credit report (and you can get consumer scores with that - but the ones I pull will be lower usually.) You need to know what is on your report. Good bad or ugly, if it is good - move to the next step. If not let's deal with it. A planner will help you in dealing with any bad stuff, helping you take the right steps for dealing with collections, etc. We do not repair credit, that is a misleading arena. You can't repair legitimate issues, you have to deal with them.. You can repair issues that are fraudulent or legitimate errors. And as a CMP, I guide my clients in how to do it, but they do it themselves. So now, you have the scores we like to see. Let's buy a house!

Collateral - now you know what you can afford each month and you are pre-approved with a letter from the lender that you can give to a seller as proof that you are serious about buying. Get a referral to a licensed Realtor. I recommend this only because there are programs available to you with a Realtor, that aren't elsewhere. And why not let the seller pay a Realtor to find you the best home. And you can negotiate fees with them too. And if you find a For Sale By Owner, the Realtor can help you negotiate. Have a buyers agency in place - this means a contract that has the realtor working for you - if you don't have this in place they work for the seller and don't have to disclose all the little grubby details on a house that we as buyers like to know.

There are more steps, but these are the first ones. If you would like more information on the first two, please feel free to contact me as a resource. I would be happy to help.
[e-mail]

Good Luck!

Answer 3

The first thing you need to figure out is your monthly allowance for a mortgage payment, homeowners insurance, and real estate taxes. On top of that figuring make sure you budget in utilities.
Then with that figure you can search the size house you want compared to the size house you can afford.
Also look at the location and school district (if you have kids or plan to in this house).
Next you should get pre approved for the loan amount that fits your monthly budget. The mortgage company will want lots of docs (I use to work for one); Tax returns, W2s, bank stmts, retirement statements and any other assest/debt info.
With the pre approval this makes your offer on a house look more sound.
Then house hunt; either by yourself or get a realtor. A realtor does not cost you anything, the seller pays the fees of both realtors, out of the sales amount.
There are also costs involved in buying the home, the mortgage company will charge prepaids and closing costs for their services and others involved in the process. This can cost anywhere between $3000 - $6000 on average.
many sellers will pay this for the buyer during purchasing negotiating. A realtor is helpful for a first time homebuyer.

Answer 4

First and foremost, find out if you can afford to buy a house. Realty websites such as Realtor.com have online calculators that determine how much of a house you can afford for the amount of income you have.
If all is well with your finances, the only factor that's really left to consider is if you're "homeowner material". If you hate yard work, painting, and other general housework and repairs, and can't afford to hire someone to do it for you, you can still have a house, but it's going to fall into disrepair fairly quicky. And believe you me, it can be very expensive owning a home!
The realty websites can help you decide on owning a home much better than I can...good luck!

Answer 5

How much you can afford

Size you need

Location you want

Distances to work etc

Type of house you want

Cost of running a home

Answer 6

1) Area
2) Cost
3) Developer background
dont end up like me, up till now, by apartment have no CF... and the developer was well known for it..