YASG. Buying a House is Hard, but Worth It

Buying a house is hard. There's no other way of saying it, really. A couple years ago, my spouse and I bought a house, and we still get little surprises along the way.

Down Payments Are Scary

The traditional down payment recommendation is 20% down. In my area, $300k is the price of most starter homes, not in the city, with a small yard. This equals $60k just to sit down and sign the initial paperwork. It doesn't even include inspections and appraisals.

Private Mortgage Insurance

There is a thing often referred to as PMI or Private Mortgage Insurance that is added to your mortgage payment every month. Figure out the exact monthly payment for your PMI if it applies before deciding if you're up for trading saving a bunch of money first or paying more money every month. In the right market, you'll gain quite a bit of equity as the value goes up along side you paying down the mortgage principal over time. On the other hand, having more money saved up before you make such a large purchase allows you to also build up your credit score over time, watch the interest rates, and avoid the extra charge added to your mortgage payment each month.

Federal Housing Association Insured Loans

We used the FHA or Federal Housing Association loan. This loan is available through certain lenders, and is insured by the Federal Housing Association and has an associated PMI monthly charge. This loan does have only 3.5% down requirements, and doesn't require great credit. Look into the requirements from your lender for this type of loan, and consider if the trade off is a good fit for you and your situation.

USDA Backed Loans

Another option if you're willing to buy in more rural areas, is a USDA loan. The main two requirements are a house within certain geographies and an income below a certain limit. Both of these limits change occasionally, but are fairly easy to find online and double check with a lender that is approved to service USDA loans.

The perks of a USDA loan include less money down (depending on income tiers)and lots of educational information along the way. This loan also comes with a PMI monthly charge with your mortgage, and care should be taken to consider if this trade off is right for you and your situation.

If you meet the requirements of this loan, it's a good idea to find a lender that can help you with it incase the house you choose also qualifies. This opens up your different financing options so that you receive even more information as the process goes on.

Go With Who You Know

Our mortgage is with a major national servicer, but we went through our credit union. This route allowed us to utilize a major servicer with all the built in features, but also to have a local contact person at our local branch. The servicer looked at both of our incomes and credit scores, and the credit union added in information that does not show up on our credit reports: personal account history, how often we were late on a payment for a car loan we had with the same credit union, etc.

This "personal" information that the credit union knew first hand really helped us out with getting slightly better terms for our loan. We had a similar experience when looking for credit cards. The bank where my spouse had an old unused account saw a mature customer that never had a negative balance. The lack of negative balance was due to the account being used little to none since age 16, but the age and statistics on the count that the were brought up in the banking history report were much more favorable than the skimpy credit report we otherwise had to show.

Our credit union had ties to traditional, FHA and USDA loans. Because of this, we were able to compare all three along the way to see which option worked best for the house we chose, our situation, and the exact terms within each offer.

You Are the Landlord

When something goes wrong in your apartment, you call the landlord. You are your own landlord once you buy a house. You get to call the plumber, appliance repair, electrician, and insurance guy. You have to juggle calls, information and payments.

It's overwhelming at times, but helpful to utilize family, friends and neighbors if you need references for a repair guy or company. Don't forget to check out any reviews you can find online as well. Take everything with a grain of salt though: family can do positive reviews, and the angrier someone is the more they spin an issue that may have nothing to do with the company.

Mortgage Payments Do Go Up

It's a common misconception being spread around: mortgage payments stay the same as long as you don't have any balloon payments or non-fixed interest rates. This isn't true. Part of the mortgage payment includes property taxes and home insurance. Even if the interest payments and principal are fixed at one rate, taxes and insurance go up over time.

Insurance can be affected by the positive gains in your property value as well as overall inflation in your area. Taxes can also be affected by positive gains in your property value, but also go up after taxes are passed to fund social projects like road improvements or public school education. I'm all for funding schools, roads, and firefighters, but it still stung a bit to see how much my payments went up when my escrow account came up short at the six month escrow review after my city and state each passed through vote increased taxes.

When the escrow account did not have enough money to pay insurance and taxes, I have the choice of coming up with the difference quickly and having a slightly higher monthly payment to cover the change in the future... or my monthly payment goes up high enough to cover the difference quickly and guess at any changes on the horizon.

Research, Research, Research

There are a million websites out there that have a wealth of information about money and mortgages. Check out sites like Nerd Wallet and Bank Rate to float through an informative wormhole of mortgage information, tips, and warning signs.

podcast. I Hope They Hear This

Sometimes, you just have to let your thoughts out. That's exactly why David Shin created the podcast I Hope They Hear This.

Exciting Titles & Calming Monologues
David Shin has a calming voice and a lot of thoughts. When I found his podcast on Podcoin, I expected to be angry, prompted to begin fiery discussions about my thoughts after each episode. With episode names such as I hope Korean Americans Hear This and I Hope Trump Haters Hear This and I Hope People Who Think Hitler Was Evil Hear This, how could this podcast disappoint my want for opposition at times? I was awkwardly surprised at the intellectual monologues that crept through my headphones.

Shin adorably references his wife's critiques of his episodes on occasion, and works to make his episodes easier to follow as he experiments with his new found hobby. His opinions are well formed and often analytical, but need some time to explain. I found myself growing better understanding not only for his points, but also for the many possible sides presented by Shin. This is an amazing listen whether I agreed or disagreed with each point of discussion, and I look forward to hearing the many more episodes.


(Note: My referral code for Podcoin is Alir2jd5, if you feel so inclined. The previous links do not include my referral code.)

YASG. Young Adult Survival Guide

I've just seen a meme that said

"We need to make a new survival guide. Idk what I'm doing anymore." 

I agree wholeheartedly. We really need to help each other out in this sense. Each of us has something to add to this conversation, but we may each need help figuring out what it is. Send me an email or leave me a comment that tells me a bit about a topic you know.

What Can You Share?

Do you know everything about taxes, and can write a blog about the cliffnotes for those really drowning? Recently purchased a house and want to share all the tips you learned along the way? Do you interview for entry level positions and can write about the major "red flags" of old ways of narrowing down interviewees that often are just habits of our socially awkward generation? What are we as a generation needing to work on that you as an individual can spread fixin' knowledge about for the masses?

Already doing a blog about this? Let me know! I'll send people to your blog or site.

Drop me a line! I'm open and love to learn. Let's help each other and the next generation!

Stool or Chair: Where is The LINE!?

In my household we regularly hold ridiculous debates. Our current one is where exactly is the line between a chair and a stool?

We begin by attempting to define them of our own accord to see if we agree. When this fails and words cannot be agreed upon, we google definitions for a reputable source to define each individually and attempt to find a line we can agree upon... and when this fails, we devolve into extreme exceptions to the other person's definitions.

Chair vs. Stool

Google defines a chair as follows: Noun,"a separate seat for one person, typically with a back and four legs."

Google defines a stool as follows: noun, "a seat without a back or arms, typically resting on three or four legs or on a single pedestal."

This brings us to the discussion of the where the line is. Can a seat be both? there may be two lines: chair, chair-stool, and stool. The use of the word "typically" in both definitions is really what is throwing us with this discussion: the word "typically" allows for so many exceptions to the "rule" we are attempting to define.

Help Us Decide!

Where is your line? When is it a chair? When is it a stool?

Podcast. White Lies

I quite enjoy listening to podcasts that investigate and retell the various angles of a story and how it has evolved both socially and factually. The ever-evolving game of telephone we play as kids can be so harmful as adults in social circles, and so very difficult to unravel when an entire community plays it for over five decades.

A Story of Law & Social Influence

The podcast White Lies by NPR takes two young men from Alabama to the small town of Selma, Alabama to investigate a trial that occurred shortly after, and likely was related to, the Bloody Sunday Massacre after a peaceful march led by Martin Luther King, Jr. in the mid-1960s.

The two podcast hosts search desperately for the trial transcripts for the murder of a white religious leader and northerner who had come to Selma after Bloody Sunday in an attempt to help the turbulent town. Along the way, they interview people alive at the time including trial jurors, discover various media circulated at the time, and unravel stories told down through generations of the stories told socially through the many grapevines. Depth is added to the investigative story by way of current political and historic structures and stories of the town that help paint a picture of how the town may have looked in the 60's.

The White Lies podcast is well written, well executed, and well balanced. I highly recommend it to the podcasts listeners among us.

Podcast. Imagined Life by Wondery

This has by far been my favorite podcast, and it continues to surprise me in the best ways. I truly hope Wondery keeps this podcast coming for many, many episodes.

Get to Know Who You Think You Know

The model of this podcast is that you, the listener, are the main character in a story. After much research, an episode is written to put you in the place of someone you likely know, or at least have heard the name or heard part of the famous story.

You learn all about little known, but very relevant stories of the childhood, adolescence, and adulthood of this person. Each episode focuses on the life, struggles, and triumphs of one person. Along the path of the podcasts, clues are given about who "you" are, and there is so much care taken into making sure the clues are not too obvious.

I highly recommend these podcasts for the entertainment, mystery, and education about another's life. Check out the podcast: Imagined Life by Wondery.

Book. Wicked

I recently finished the book Wicked by Gregory Macguire. I'd heard of the play, and because of my lovely spouse's obsession with musicals I had already memorized the entire soundtrack for the play based upon the book.

One of the best parts about this book is that I have never seen the play, and my spouse has never read the book. Almost every time I finished a chapter, we had an in depth discussion about the differences between the book and the play. This was better than a book club for me, and I think this was the perfect book to do this with. I look forward to watching the play now that I've finished the book, but I also quite enjoyed the many discussions we had about the book along the way.

Book vs. Play

Without giving away too many spoilers, I strongly believe that with this book one can watch the play before reading the book without "ruining" the experience by knowing what comes next. While the story lines are incredibly similar, even the main characters change between the book and the play. Characters and their entire entangling story lines are removed from the play. Events that seem so important to the book are missing entirely from the play.

I'm really excited next to see the play. I've heard all about it, but wish to fully experience it for my self soon.

Have you read the book? Seen the play? Let me know what you think!