fbpx

Your Guide To Purchasing And Moving Property

Moving home is a tough and complicated process – so when the time comes to move home, and your kids are demanding answers, it can be fairly easy to dumb down the process to buying and selling. We have this much money and bought this house is what you might say, and while it is true, it’s an extremely diluted process. While that knowledge is invaluable, any extra information that you can impart on your children will help them down the line – when the time comes for them to move home!

Your Guide To Purchasing And Moving Property - corner house image

(source)

The first thing to do when moving home is to complete the purchase of a new home. This is usually done through a mortgage – money borrowed from the bank to be paid back over the course of time specifically with the home in mind. In some cases, properties are bought outright, but a mortgage is most common. You need to work out what you can afford and a good way of estimating is basing money off of the mortgage deposit. Ten percent is the usual borrowing limit so $10,000 dollars will likely give you the ability to borrow up to $90,000. This means that $100,000 is your range for buying. This will differ from lender to lender. Once you know how much you can spend, you’ll need to locate the perfect property. This is easily done thanks to estate agents and real estate websites which afford the buyer an in-depth look at their new home. You can get a better look at a home by arranging a visit, or viewing. After one, or multiple viewing of various properties, you might have identified the perfect property. This is a stage where you can feel free to negotiate a price. You could possibly get the seller to drop their asking price slightly to either bring the property into your price range – or you could simply do this to save cash and increase the power of your deposit/down payment to reduce your monthly mortgage repayments.  There are a number of things you need to think about when negotiating a price on the home. If you low-ball the buyer, you might insult the seller and miss out on a good home that you’ve taken the time out to identify. Of course, you also don’t want to pay more than you need to. Thankfully, there is plenty of data on hand… Look at sales in the same area as the potential new home. Is your offer in line with these sales? Did these sales go for an amount lower than the actual asking price? If the mean price of homes in the area matches the asking price, you don’t want to dip down on the offer much at all. It also depends on the market; some areas get snapped up quick, others don’t. If you’re on a high-interest market, a strong offer is going to be needed if you don’t want to lose out, but you’ll have a lot more leeway in other markets. Finally, consider how long the home has been on the market. If it has been up for a while, you’ll have a better chance of a lower offer being accepted.

Once your offer has been accepted, this is where things get a little bit tricky. Contracts need to be signed, and you can be caught out here by the seller or their legal team. Contracts need to have clauses inserted which mean that you can back out of the sale if there are issues with the home. These issues can also be used to leverage a price reduction on the home. This is the time for you to pay for a professional home inspection which can bring defects in the home to light. A price reduction can be asked for upon discovery of issues, while major problems can be a total dealbreaker. Now is the time to find out. Once this stage is over, you can submit your final mortgage application, go over the costs of closing and then sign the contract. It goes without saying that this part of buying a home is full of legal lingo – and if you don’t understand anything you need to find a conveyancing solicitor who can help. This is worth doing anyway as these professionals can sort out a lot of issues to save you the stress of doing so.

The closing stage of purchasing a home isn’t just about signing on the dotted line though. Firstly, you need to make sure nothing has changed within the property since your inspection. Then, all the money needed for the purchase needs to be paid into the seller’s account. This is now a good time to review the paperwork that needs to be signed so that you can triple check every clause in the contracts. You need to work out how much you’ll be paying each money and agree on your final mortgage deal. At this point, you’ll know exactly what is expected of you by your lender and you can now sign on the dotted line. A move in date will be discussed and that’s it, you’re a home owner!

Moving in is a big deal, so get everything boxed up well in advance. It’ll be worth your time to organize a professional cleaning of your new home so it is perfect upon your arrival. You might have already organized some contracted renovation, so this might delay your true moving in date. In any case, get all your stuff packed up and ready to be moved into the home. Book a removal company well in advance of the moving date and pack up. If you’re selling your current home, do a top to bottom sweep and rid yourself of everything you don’t need while leaving a clean house behind you.

Your Guide To Purchasing And Moving Property - packing up a house image

(source)

That’s just about everything you need to know when moving home, it’s a complicated process and the more knowledgeable you are at the start, the better you’ll handle the inevitable curveballs that will come your way during the buying process.

Bounce Back: How To Recover After A Financial Setback

Life is full of setbacks, and in these uncertain times having just one thing go wrong can set everything off the right track. Whether you’re just starting out after graduation, or you’re a fully established presence in the business world, a financial disaster can impact both your personal and professional life. When these setbacks occur, it’s important to stay calm and assess your options. Different situations have different solutions, so here are a few examples.

Bounce Back: How To Recover After A Financial Setback - calculating bills image

Image Source

Divorce

Even if a separation is amicable, making it official is costly, and emotionally draining. But once everything has been divided, and you are certain about what is yours, you need to reestablish credit in your own name. First, ward off any potential credit problems by getting rid of all joint accounts you had with your former spouse, and build up your new credit by making sure to pay all your bills on time. If you don’t have a lot of credit in your own name, try building it up by applying for a secured credit card, which requires you to pay cash upfront for a credit line.

Find out where you stand financially by getting reports from the three credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — via the government-mandated site, AnnualCreditReport.com. If you spot any credit errors, write to your creditors or the credit bureaus and dispute any mistakes.

Debt

Having a lot of debt is probably nothing new to a Millennial, but that doesn’t make it any easier for anyone to live with it. Fortunately, if you’re patient and you stick to a thought-out plan, you could eventually free yourself from the grip of debt. Ask yourself the following questions to assess your situation:

  • What are your remaining assets?
  • How much money do you owe?
  • How much income do you bring in each month?
  • How much do you spend?
  • What is your credit score?
  • Are they any long term implications to the financial disaster (alimony, health issues, I.R.S. liens) that must be included in your recovery plan?

Once you’re familiar with your situation, you can begin to make a realistic repayment plan. If you need some help with this, get in touch with a money mentor who can point out other solutions. T may also be a good idea to set aside some emergency funds in case another setback occurs while you’re making progress with your repayments. Even if it takes you years, you can use these steps to free yourself from debt.

Medical Bills

Bounce Back: How To Recover After A Financial Setback - medical expenses image

Image Source

Medical problems can come in a variety of forms. If you work as a self-employed freelancer, or in hospitality, taking a few days off sick can set you back in shifts and leave you short of your rent for a month. More serious injuries and illnesses that lead to hospital stays will certainly lead to unexpected bills.

Recovering from these bills will put a strain on your finances for a while, but if you tighten your belt and employ the same steps you use to recover from debt, there’s a good chance your finances, and your health, will recover. Sometimes it helps to reach out to your bank and asking for a short reprieve. If you don’t ask, the answer will always be no.

If you have an ongoing illness or handicap, and feel you need more aid to recover financially, you could find a disability lawyer to help explain your options.

Unexpected Job Situation

Jobs aren’t as dependable as they once were. Sometimes you chose to leave your job, and you have emergency funds in place while you job hunt. Other times, you find yourself without a job, just when you’re starting to get your finances back into order.

If you’re in the latter situation, you really have no time to wallow in your disappointment. Clarify with your soon-to-be-former employer, how much longer you will be staying on, and if you will be paid for the time you are still an employee. Once you know how much longer you will have money coming in, spend your free time sorting out your resume and securing references. In this case, the best way to financially recover from losing your job is to make sure you get another one lined up as quickly as possible.

Bankruptcy

Bounce Back: How To Recover After A Financial Setback - bankruptcy image

Image Source

Nothing feels quite as shameful and humiliating as having to declare bankruptcy. There is a horrible stigma attached to declaring bankruptcy, as though you were solely to blame for not paying your bills on time. But unfortunately, despite our best efforts, sometimes it’s impossible to pay off your debts. You’re not alone. A May 2011 survey from FindLaw.com indicated that one in eight adults in the U.S. — about 13 percent of the population — say they’ve contemplated bankruptcy.

However, instead of wallowing in feelings of failure and disappointment, you need to start looking into how you can turn your situation around. As difficult as it may be, you have to look at your situation objectively in order to identify what led you to this point. Only by understanding how you got here, can you begin to make an effective plan to recover from bankruptcy. Set a budget and stick to it, avoid payday loans, find a way to rebuild your credit, and be sure to monitor your credit reports regularly.

Foreclosure

Between 2007 and 2011, a record number of homeowners went through foreclosure, and there are currently 798,495 properties in the US that are in some state of foreclosure. If you’ve recently lost your home, you’ve probably gone through most of your savings. Once you’re set up someone, either with family or in rented accommodation, the best way to recover from foreclosure is to rebuild your savings by creating a ‘rainy day’ fund. Even if you’re happy to be renting for the rest of your life, having an emergency savings account can go a long way to helping you gain back some financial stability in case of other setback.

Frequently Asked Questions: Home Buying

There really is a lot going on when we move home. From money changing hands to a full on moving process. It’s a process that brings up a lot of questions. Let’s break down some of the most common questions that are asked when moving home!

1 – How Do I Get A Mortgage?

Well, you need to go to the bank. A mortgage is a loan given to the buyer by the bank so that the buyer can purchase the property from the seller and then pay the bank back. Mortgages are usually paid back over a long term period. To gain access to a larger loan from the bank, you’ll have to pay a bigger deposit, just so the larger amount of money is at least secured in some way. There are plenty of different mortgage providers, so you can shop around. But why would you want to shop around? Aren’t they all just the same? Not really, each lender will add a different amount of interest on top of the repayments, meaning the same loan could be made more expensive.

2 – What Happens If I Don’t Pay Back The Mortgage?

If you don’t pay back the mortgage, your house will be repossessed by the bank. This is because the house is what you have borrowed against to achieve the mortgage in the first place. You’ll also lose your deposit. This isn’t an instant process, but it will be put in action within thirty days of a missed mortgage payment. Within ninety days the bank will have started the foreclosure process, which would be their attempt to repossess the house. This can lead to the bank auctioning off the site to reclaim the money. There are plenty of ways around this – just try to make back the payments. You could also try to sell the house.

3 – What Happens If I Can’t Meet Mortgage Payments?

Frequently Asked Questions: Home Buying - mortgage application image

(source)

Refusing to pay a mortgage and not being able to pay are two different things. If you know that you won’t meet your monthly payment, you need to let the lender know. In almost all cases, a lender would rather you work to meet payments. It means they don’t take a loss on their investment in you. You could switch to simply pay the interest on your mortgage to lower the cost, or work out a new plan. In many cases, help is available for you to seek if you know you won’t be able to meet payments.

4 – Is Buying A Home Better Than Renting A Home?

Frequently Asked Questions: Home Buying - house for sale image

(source)

Some people rent, some people buy. Many people would say that renting is ‘dead money’ – your cash isn’t going anywhere. However, some people can’t afford to buy, or they might not be ready for the responsibilities that come with home ownership.

When is renting better than home ownership? Well, it’s circumstantial. If you are always on the move – renting might be better. If you don’t want to dive into the world of home maintenance, renting is better. The ‘dead money’ argument, for the most part, is true. Buying homes are solid investments, but a lot of the monthly costs involved with home ownership don’t go towards paying off the mortgage – insurance, tax, energy bills. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that dead money isn’t involved with a mortgage.

What’s more, interest rates are pretty low – meaning that in most cases, a mortgage might be cheaper than renting. This depends on your down payment as well, though.

5 – How Do I Handle The Legal Side?

This is where things get difficult. There are a lot of legal documents and papers that need to be filed when buying a home. While a keen legal eye might get far, it is worth leaving the job to experienced agencies in the field, like www.tbw.uk.com/conveyancing-law/property-lawyers-solicitors-bexleyheath.html who can handle a number of things. These agencies deal with areas such as declaring property boundaries, neighbour disputes, the fixtures included with the sale, building permissions, guarantees, regulation certificates, validate the owner of the property, register the site and much more. Of course, these can be handled by yourself, but it is worth hiring legal help. There are a lot of pitfalls associated with home ownership.

These cover the basic areas of buying a new home and should be more than enough to get you started with your interests. There are a number of areas to branch off into as well – such as researching down payments, mortgages and of course, the complex legal side of home ownership as well.

 

The Wrong Fairy Tales: Ignore These Mortgage Myths!

The Wrong Fairy Tales: Ignore These Mortgage Myths! - mortgage sign image

Flickr

Very few people are able to buy a house outright. Some people will try to make the argument that this is a problem unique to our financially-troubled times, but the truth is that we’ve rarely not lived in “financially-troubled” times where a lot of people were able to buy homes without assistance from some institution.

Banks and other lenders have been pulling the financial strings of the vast majority of homeownership for a long time, and it will probably continue to be that way for a long time yet. The fact is that, unless you’re pretty darn wealthy, you’re going to need financial assistance to get a home. Heck, even the wealthy need the assistance at times, when you consider modern house prices.

Getting a mortgage is, in all likelihood, how you’re going to get your own home. So it’s important that you’re not falling for any myths about mortgages! Here are some of the most common.

A pre-approved loan is a sure thing

Yes, you should definitely get a mortgage pre-approved before you start shopping for property. But this doesn’t mean that a pre-approved mortgage is the same thing as a mortgage! However, once you’ve made an offer on the place, the lender is going to double-check everything. After all, things may have changed between that pre-approval and the final approval. Remember that prefix: pre-approval. It’s not total approval just yet!

The Wrong Fairy Tales: Ignore These Mortgage Myths! - lender image

Flickr

A high income is all that matters

Let’s say you’ve got one person earning $100,000 a year and another that earns $50,000 a year. The first one is going to get the best mortgage rate, right? Well, not necessarily. There are a lot of factors to consider. Ms $100,000 may also be paying about $60,000 in debt every year, whereas Ms $50,000 is only paying maybe $3000 in debt. The latter has a healthier cash flow, so has the upper hand! Another thing to consider is the type of work you do. Ms $50,000 may be a scientist with a steady career ladder ahead. Ms $100,000 may be a self-employed freelancer who could potentially earn much less in the following year!

Your credit needs to be spotless

It’s true that a good credit score is highly desirable if you want a mortgage. But you’re not expected to have a perfect score. But if you have a middling score – and many people do! – then it’s not exactly a deal breaker. In general, a few blemishes won’t hurt you overall as long as you have a steady income and pay your bills.

The Wrong Fairy Tales: Ignore These Mortgage Myths! - credit score image

Image Credit Flickr and Cafe Credit

You need to have 20% saved for a down payment

20% is the amount that always gets thrown around when it comes to saving up money for a down payment on a home. And, yes, that is the best minimum to have if you want the best mortgage rates. But it’s not necessary – after all, that 20% is usually quite a lot of money. There are a lot of good institutions who will give you a mortgage with a down payment of about 5%, for example. Don’t assume you’re doomed if you haven’t saved that magical amount of 20% just yet!

Prepare Your Money For The End

It’s going to happen to us all one day. One of the inevitabilities of life is that it is eventually going to end. When it comes to your finances, some might take the nihilistic approach that gathering wealth doesn’t matter in the grand scheme. Realists, however, realize that when they pass they keep having a huge impact on the lives of those around them. Their finances can play a big role in that, for better or for worse. They also realize that the sooner they get the ball rolling, the better.

Prepare Your Money For The End - mother and child statue image

Link

Don’t leave your loved ones footing the bill

One step that everyone should take now if they’re able, is to get themselves a life insurance policy. Without life insurance, the costs of dealing with your funeral and all the other arrangements that have to be made after you pass will be taken out of your estate or even passed on to your family. You don’t want to be a source of even more loss to them after you’re gone. You might think it’s only older people that have to worry about life insurance, but it can be a lot cheaper if you get a start on it earlier. When you’re older, you’re also more likely to have health issues that can limit your life insurance choices further down the line. Take care of it while it’s still easy.

Make sure it goes where you want it to go

Writing a last will and testament is crucial, as is keeping it updated every time your assets undergo a change. But it’s not enough to have just a will. The process of having it executed is a length one with a lot of legal requirements to be fulfilled. A will has to be proven in the eyes of the law to be the legitimate document that it is. Things like creditors and their rights to any assets or wealth mentioned in the will have to be sorted, too. An executor, like probate lawyers from IRB Law, is worth getting on your side early. The sooner you have someone informed and prepared about your will, the smoother they can make the process for your loved ones. Otherwise, arguments over the execution of the will might even cost the whole worth of it.

Get your prep work done early

To make it even smoother for your will to be executed, you should have a whole estate plan ready. Much like finding your net worth, make an inventory of all your physical items, non-physical wealth, credit cards and debts. If you’re part of any organizations like alumni or charitable groups, list them too as many of them have benefits to offer your loved ones. Look at other accounts like your IRA and 401(k) too, to make sure you’re still happy with your selected beneficiary listings on the documents. Regardless of what a will states, those listings take precedence. It’s a good idea to organize your estate at least once a year.

It’s worth getting your estate in motion now rather than later. Not only do you get peace of mind sooner, but it will cost less and be worth more to get it done now.