Buying A New House
When you first want to buy a house, you have no idea what you are doing. You’ll act like everybody from the realtor to the seller is doing you a favor. I should know, my first home purchase was a big lovefest and in the end I could have gotten a much better deal.
Here are the steps you should take care of prior to buying a home:
1, Watch out for realtors. Never ever take their advice on anything. They don’t care if they sell you a pile of poop or a mansion. If it’s in the same price range, they get paid the same. They always want a quick sale and will always tell you what you want to hear.
2. Never ever show your cards. Let everyone know as little as possible about your finance. Don’t tell them what you even do for a living. Once they peg your finanical situation, they will leverage it at the sale.
3. Look at the cost of taxes first and foremost. Mortgages eventually go away, but taxes never do.
Take this for example:
Scenario A: I buy a house for $250,000 with $4,000 annual in taxes.
Scenario B: I buy a house for $200,000 with $5,700 annual in taxes.
Case A & B will end costing you roughly the same.
4. Mortgage companies suck and are always look out for themselves. Always demand that you not pay PMI (Personal Mortgage Insurance). PMI it sounds like something that would bail you out, if you were in trouble, right? Wrong, it pays the bank if you default on the loan. Not only are you paying the bank, but if you don’t pay the bank the insurance company pays them for you.
5. Inspect every inch of that thing. Pay a professional, but get in there and do it yourself too. If you don’t like something, tell them to fix it.
6. If you want to bail at any point, just do it! It will cost them about $50,000 to ever see anything from a lawsuit. No one will waste their time. If they win, they could only hold you to the original contract anyway.