Buying Tips     

Important Questions to Ask Yourself . . .

   For those who are not living on a fixed income, it makes very good practical sense to ask yourself a few important questions about your personal financial status:

• Can you meet the new mortgage payments with your current income?  And how secure is this income?

• If you were to lose your current job, do you have the resources to pay your mortgage while looking for work and new income?

• Will car, credit card, insurance and other miscellaneous payments interfere with mortgage payments?  Lenders normally do not want the sum of these other debts to exceed 36% of personal income.

• Does this house need a lot of repairs or remodeling?  And are the $$$ resources needed available?

   Try to be completely honest with yourself.  It's no fun to own a home that eats up too much hard-earned income.  Being "House Poor" is the term for those people who spend too much money on their homes and consequently miss out on all the pleasures of life, as well as that comforting sense of security that owning a home normally brings. The general "Rule of Thumb" is that the total mortgage payment should not add up to more than 30 percent of take-home pay. That leaves the remaining 70  percent for all other monthly payments, normal cost of living, plus all those "unexpected" expenses.