House Purchasing Guide

The housing market across the United States continues to thrive while the Federal rate remains at an all time low and despite a pandemic which has ravaged the world the market in the United States remains absolutely resilient especially in the residential area. It continues to show the two tales of the pandemic, one is that of high unemployment and a lost of jobs and another of a stock market that continues to thrive along with a booming housing market. The residential sector could lead to the rise from a recession in which the United States was heading into for the economy and though 2020 was a record-breaking year for the US housing market it appears 2021 through early 2022 could see more record breaking. The typical U.S. home was worth $265,200 in December, up 8.4% (or $20,587) from a year ago. A total of 5.64 million homes were sold in 2020, up 5.6% from 2019 and the most since before the Great Recession, according to Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. Sales also rose 0.7% from November and 22.2% year over year. As vaccines are coming out and the pandemic will eventually see step declines in mortality rates and hopefully a return to normal life for many Americans, jobs which were abandoned and projects which were pushed back will start up again and though many jobs will never return a new type of job market has opened up utilizing home internet and zoom services.

Another incentive for Americans is the many State and Federal programs which have existed and the new ones that are being created currently. The newer programs are driven by many different avenues from the Pandemic and also extra funding left-over from money that was not spent in each individual state. It is definitely time to take advantage of all these programs but many who have little experience are going to miss out on this and both bigger companies that buy and flip homes and smaller real estate companies are grabbing up these homes and will take away the advantage of the typical buyer. So what I want to do is create a step by step guide without any selling point which again many companies are offering but doing it for their own profit and not entirely for the individual looking to buy a home for their family. Especially as many are finding that living in apartments is being not suitable since it seems that many apartments are being neglected by the owners since they are not getting paid, the feudal system of renting is becoming a thing that many families want to escape but really do not understand how. When first looking at a home the first thing one needs to do is determine what they are looking for in location, size, and room/bath requirements. To do this you can simply start by going on real estate websites (such as Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, Realtor.com, MLS, and finally Century 21) and from their begin by putting in your zip code of the area you are interested in and you can toggle on all these sites using filters to pick out how many bathrooms and bedrooms you seek along with looking at pictures inside and out. Next, many people are faced with worrying about credit scores and proof of income which indeed is a problem but not something that has to stop you getting that house and if you are an investor that faces this similar problems the “Proof of Funds Letter” can be provided with certain restrictions for about ten bucks. If you are someone who is on the lower end of the credit spectrum whether it is because of bad credit handling or a lack of, their is something you can do and I personally suggest obtaining a free account at Experian and Credit Karma which can guide you how to raise your credit quickly and I know from personal experience that either one of these can raise your school by hundreds within a two month period. Some technics that I have learned from years of studying credit fixes is that the first thing you do is find any negative reports such as a closed unpaid account that went to collection, past derogatory accounts, and any hard inquires and begin to contest them which can be done easily through the Experian.com website which allows you to obtain all three of the major reporting bureaus. From their you can go to the derogatory reports and you can easily contest anything that is hurting your credit on all three bureaus by writing on the credit agencies contest area which is an online dispute that takes a minute to fill out. The best defense is to write that this account was already dealt with or if you have a defense ready write it out and hit send and that is it. The credit agency only has a certain amount of time usually thirty days to respond and if they do not it is usually erased without any problem. Now if you have no understanding of how to repair your credit I suggest using credit karma which will teach you for free how to fix your credit scores. The other step I suggest is searching for a FHA loan and some of them offer programs in which you take a class and in turn they help find you a loan company that gives FHA loans and you can obtain it at a low credit score usually under 600. To find these programs which include first-time homebuyer incentives you can locate them on the State level website such as HUD websites or FHA websites but beware their are many scammer sites that uses both of these titles to lure you to their profit making sites. (Federal Housing Administration | HUD.gov / U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) are legit sites and any site ending in .gov in the United States is always an official site. Once you are in this site one can see the many offers and packages of buying a house and incentives. Once, you have your credit in order or have a set up FHA loan or HUD assistance without having to have that perfect credit score you can move on to the next step which is finding a good real estate agent to help organize the house you choose and explain what paper work is needed and what else is required.

Moving forward it must be understood that buying a house for the first time or second requires patience and as many people are rushing to get out of their rented properties this can be difficult and overwhelming. This is why investing in purchasing home it is best to utilize the FHA sites which have full counseling on what to do to best achieve whatever goal you seek out. Another method is using foreclosed websites and also purchasing HUD homes but with buying foreclosed homes you must understand that it may require a high risk potential and that many of the foreclosed homes are people who have eviction protection. Another series of programs that exist are from the Pandemic relief programs that also has enabled many States to have extra programs for purchasing homes which raised the first-time buyer amount to 15,000 dollars if you qualify and other great incentives. After you have all these steps completed and are ready to buy your home you choose with your agent or Government endorsed loan you are ready to move in you will need to have extra money for furniture and other expenses for your new home but of all the problems this is the least. If your credit again is not good enough to purchase a credit card without a secure down deposit a good site is (Katupult) which has credit at many stores that you probably never heard of but sell good products. In the end this is a crash course into buying a house during a surprisingly great time in the United States. If you have any further questions please send me an email at my personal email JosephDougherty483@gmail.com and good luck!!!!!