Buying a House

Its summertime and you may have that itch to move. You may be moving in to your first house, or you may be moving into a bigger house or changing school districts. Whatever the case may be you want your move to go as smoothly as possible and you want your new place to be a blessing and not a headache. You surely dont want to be in the foreclosure statistic pile that we are seeing. Right now is a great time to buy a house, if you can afford it. Here are a few tips if you think you may be wanting to move: Be out of debt!! Do you know how much easier it is when your house payment comes in and utilities and they are not followed by a personal loan, three credit card bills and a car payment. Get these things out of the way and enjoy your house! Before you buy have an emergency fund of 3 to 6 months living expenses. Emergencies do happen and its nice when you have the money to pay for them. Have a 20% down payment or if you are really hard core you can go for the 100% down payment! Do your best to stick at a 15 year fixed rate mortgage where the payments are around 25% of your take home pay. Stay away from "creative financing", we see what it done to home owners. Fixed rate mortgages are the way to go and at 15 years. Also dont get the "if you die your mortgage will be paid for" insurance. Instead get 8-10 times your yearly income in term life insurance, its cheaper and will take care of your family if something happens to you. Buy a house either with your husband or wife, or by yourself. You dont need a partner. If the relationship falls apart it will get ugly fast. If you are thinking ,I cant buy if I go by theses rules I dont have the 20% or I cant afford a 15 year mortgage, then maybe you need to wait on the largest purchase of you life. Dont worry they are not going to run out of houses anytime soon.