Month: January 2019

Are you thinking about buying a home in the near future? If so, you should take one crucial step before all others: determine what you can afford.

Purchasing a home is one of the most significant transactions you’ll ever make. With this in mind, you should carefully evaluate what will work for you before you dive into the process. Even before you contact your lending professional or real estate agent, ask yourself a few key questions.

What are your needs for living space, both now and in the future? What resources will you be able to utilize for down payment and closing costs?

Beyond this, what do you realistically think you’ll be able to afford each month? What additions to your family do you anticipate, and what impact will they have on your family budget, both in terms of monthly expenses and household income?

Lastly, how much will you be able to save each month for the proverbial rainy day, in case you experience a reduction or gap in income?

Once you answer all of these questions, then you can start talking to people who are in a position to help you finance and purchase a home.

Your first stop is your mortgage professional in order to get some tangible numbers. Here, you’ll take all of the guesswork out of what you think you’ll be able to afford.

Next, with solid numbers and a preapproval in hand, you can contact a real estate agent. This agent will show you appropriate properties based on what you learned with the mortgage professional.

Buyers who don’t use this method often search for homes randomly and end up falling in love with one that is ultimately out of reach. Save yourself time and heartache by using this due process to find the perfect home for your needs and budget.

Have you carefully considered the questions listed? When you’re ready for the next step, contact your mortgage professional to get started.

While these terms are related, they are not one and the same. A deed is the legal document that transfers ownership of a property from one party to another. Title represents the ownership of that property (what rights a person has to it).

Titles and deeds can also take on different forms. For example, a common type of deed is a quitclaim deed.

This deed can be used in the case of a married couple who purchases a home together. If they would prefer that only one of them have ownership interest in the property, they can use a quitclaim deed. The person who will have no ownership interest uses this deed to sign away their rights to the other party. This might be done for financial or legal reasons.

If, at some point in time, a spouse needs to be added, they would use a quitclaim to make this change as well.

Regarding titles, once a person is added to a title, they may “hold title” in one of several ways. This holding refers to what legal rights each person on the title has.

A common example is “tenants by the entirety.” This is often used by married couples. In this situation, if one of the parties passes away, the other automatically becomes sole owner of the property.

There are other ways title can be held, especially for nonmarried couples. Each version gives each party specific rights as to what they are able to do with the property, both while they are alive and after they pass.

For more details on these variations, contact your mortgage professional.