Why Should you Have Money Saved Before Looking for a Home

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By swedal

Some first home buyers have the misconception that when they are in the market to purchase a new or older home, all they have to do is contact a real estate agency and tell them what type of home they are in the market to buy. Many do not realize that there is quite a lot of cash involved with buying a home and in order not to be rejected for a home mortgage, the buyer should have some cash up front.

One of the things that you need cash for is the down payment, but the amount will vary depending on the type of loan you are getting. If you are getting a FHA home loan you can put as little as three point five percent down, but a conventional loan that is not backed by the government would be quite a bit more. It is a good idea to have at least a twenty percent down payment. For example, if the home you were looking at was two hundred thousand dollars you would need forty thousand dollars down if you are figuring it at twenty percent.

The next expense would be the closing costs, which are the various taxes, fees, and other costs that are associated with home buying. The other various costs could include property survey fees, attorney fees, home appraisal fees, and more. All these fees could add up to more than three thousand dollars. If you are lucky the seller may pay all or part of the closing costs.

When you apply for a mortgage the lender is going to want to see your bank account information so you should make sure that you have more than a few dollars in your bank account. They will also check a few days before you close the deal to make sure that you can afford the closing costs and enough to make the first few payments on the mortgage.

After you have found that dream house and signed the final papers, you are going to have moving expenses. It does not matter if you do it yourself or hire a mover. You will still need to rent a moving truck to move all those big items plus the gas you would use for your car to go back and forth to the new house if you want to do anything to it before you move in.

Looking at all these expenses you can see that you will need several thousand dollars saved before you even start to look at homes.

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