Moving out of a small house that you used to occupy when there were only two of you might have felt cozy and “just right.” After a few years with a wife and growing kids in your life, new house buying might be the most advisable thing to do. Aside from the cramped size of your present house, location might be one other consideration — maybe your place now is not very near your place of work, or too far from the hospital in case of emergencies, or there may be better and more reputable schools in the next town for the children. These are just a few of the reasons why you must make that major move. List down these considerations, and make these the criteria for your decision-making — this will make sure you don’t waste your time looking at houses in areas that don’t fit your listed preferences for a new place. Then, make an organized list of steps to follow in doing this.
First move toward this goal is to check your budget for new house buying. Being an employee all your career life, it is very likely that you were only able to save enough for a down payment; so you have to either make a loan with the bank or you have to find owner financing arrangement for the balance. Being a greenhorn on this matter, you may want to talk to a professional real estate broker to help you decide which is the wisest option; this is so that you will not get enmeshed in a project that will drain your savings through time and leave you and your family penniless and out in the streets, and still without a home you could be proud of to call your very own.
There is a formula for computing your capacity to buy a new house at your present income, and a real estate broker could help you do this for a small fee. You may also do it for free if you have a computer and internet access within your reach; using a search engine, find a pro forma for this sort of computation. You simply have to fill out the blanks and the bottom-line figure will be computed for you automatically. Make certain that at least 10% savings and some funds for contingencies are included in that formula before you decide that it is a realistic figure you’d get.
When you go new house buying, work within your bottom-line figure, do not leave out the option for owner financing — this is usually more considerate payment scheme for someone with a tight budget.