ARE YOU A HOMEOWNER, WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF OWNING YOUR HOME

Are you a homeowner, well I must say that I am.  I purchased my first home in 1995, this was my first home and I was truly excited.  There was so much to do when purchasing a home.  I was actually shopping for my mother-in-law, but she got very sick in a short period of time.  This caused me to slow down, but I was already reeved up about the prospect of owning a home.  One evening, after getting home from work I decided to tell my husband how I was feeling.  I really wanted the opportunity of owning my own home.  I had never really thought of it before.  I was always a rented and didn't think too much about purchasing a home.  I had spoke to my Dad a few times because he had purchased several homes, while I was growing up.  Some he lived in a few he rented.  When I talked to him about it, he told me baby girl there is nothing wrong with owning your own home but you have to always have capital for the unexpected.  I didn't think too much about, but I knew that he was right because he had plenty of experience.  After discussing this with my husband, he told me he did not mind if I wanted to we could look into it further.  I was excited because I had no idea how he was going to respond.  He had recently landed a new job and we didn't have a lot of money saved.

The next day, I took him to see the house and he really liked it.  We talked with the realtor and he started the process.  It was so much paper work that we had to obtain; bank statements, W-2 forms and prepared taxes.  We even had to eventually get receipts of paid up hospital bills.  Who would have thought that an unpaid bill could be a problem when trying to purchase a home.  Well it was and without this bill paid up, it would have slowed down the process.  We were able to get all of the documents sent in and then the process had started.  The did background checks on the places we lived prior to this attempt to purchase, they looked into our jobs and there was endless paper work that had to be processed.  I had to make a down payment, I didn't have much but I was about to put down $10,000.  Then there would be the closing cost, this would be about another $15,000.  We were able to get the previous owner to pay our closing costs.  This was a blessing because neither of us had much more money then what we had put down on the house.

There was inspections to be done, appraisals to be completed it just seemed like this journey would never end.  The process took more than 3 months and the banks started requested updated information.  At one point, they told us that we had to pay another outstanding bill in order for the transaction to be completed.  They only allowed you to owe a certain amount of money.  We were told that we could not make any large purchases throughout the loan process. 

Finally, it was time to close we would be headed to the realtors office to sign papers.  That morning we went to closing and we had to sign so many papers.  Our lawyer explained that there still had to be a final inspection of the home before we moved in.  Everything went smooth, all the papers were signed and documented.  They cut us a check right at closing, which had to be turned over for all the closing costs to be paid.  We both signed off on the check and it was submitted.  Once all documents were completed, they had to be processed by another person.  When she completed all signed documents, we were given a copy of the entire transaction.  My lawyer looked over the paper work and noticed something out of order.  Before we finished, he was able to get us an addition $1500.  because they had charged us for something twice.  I was happy I had obtained this lawyer and glad to pay him the $900. he had asked for.  The day was finally over and it was time to go home, finish packing so we could move into our house.

Our moving date was Saturday, right after our closing.  The movers were on time and we moved into our new home officially, Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m.  That was just the beginning of our journey, approximately 4 years later I was purchasing my second home.  I was to have had this experience, the second time around wasn't as difficult.  I can now appreciate the time that it took to complete the first process, moving forward it was another journey but things went much smoother.  I sold my first home shortly after securing my second one and was able to profit about $40,000.  I very thankful today that I have been in the same home for the past 15 years, there have definitely been some challenges but I appreciate all that I have accomplished.