Home loan

[nightrythm]

Can anyone explain this stuff to me in an easy way? I've read everything and I'm still confused.

Why can't I just go in and say, I can afford to spend $x a month on my home (mortgage/insurance/taxes etc.) and I have $x to put down, how much money can I get?

Math is hard and I wanna go shopping, but I can't without doing the math first. *grump*

Comments

[deliriumx.livejournal.com]

I picked up a couple library books to help figure some of this stuff out. And once I had a good grasp of the terminology I attended a seminar offered by my credit union where I learned useful things like that they will base financing off the lower of the two credit scores between you and your spouse. And as I understand it, the seller pays for the buying agent, so there is no reason not to get one.. of course you don't want the buying & selling agent to be the same person.. bit o' conflict of interest there.
Good luck!

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

we actually did a transaction on this house where the buying/selling agent was the same person - she sold both this and our house so we could move next door. We were not really in the market to buy at the time until the house next door went on the market, so J walked over and talked to her about it, and boom, she had twice as much work to do to get this house sold. It worked out ok because there really wasn't anything complicated *we* wanted out of the neighbors before we moved, but typically speaking, yeah, not the wisest option. ;)

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

Oh, and for library books, here's some recommendations. There's always the Dummies series - they have volumes on "Home Buying" and "Mortgages". The book I recently read about Neighbor Law was published by Nolo who also has "How to Buy a House in California" and "Nolo's Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home". I've read none of the books I'm currently recommending, but the series are good in general. You might even consider reading Neighbor Law so you can keep an eye out for potential problems while viewing potential properties, and ask pertinent questions of neighbors on the blocks of promising houses. Amazon can suggest other highly reviewed titles based off those starting points.

We did all of our home buying education by the seat of our pants since we've not yet intentionally started a house hunt - property #1 was "we'll just fucking buy the place - don't make us move!" and the second was "hey, wait, it's just next door, the right size, and affordable..."

[nightrythm]

I may just go to the library today.