- Buying a property is a commitment, son.
(upbeat instrumental music)
(speaking in a foreign language)
'cause I want to talk to you guys
'cause I recently bought a home
and I was talkin' to a couple of friends of mine.
And one thing I noticed is a lot of people
do not know anything about home buying.
This video, imma talk to you guys,
and imma show you what I've learned through the process,
my process.
First of all, the reason why I felt like
I needed to buy a home, L.A. is extremely expensive.
(metal rattling)
I was paying $1,600 a month for a really small apartment
that I hated in Koreatown.
And I'm like within three years,
I paid over $57,000 in rent.
I would be able to at least have some type of equity
and I wanted to buy something that appreciates in value.
A home appreciates in value.
To be honest, before I started the process,
I thought I couldn't buy a home.
One, because I went through bankruptcy before.
I didn't think the banks would want to lend me anymore.
I have this thing, like you know, maybe the way I look,
I'm not gonna be able to get a good rate,
or I'm not gonna get a mortgage.
It was scary.
I saved around $20,000 and I sat down
and I spoke to a lender and he said that, you know what,
let's say you apply, apply for preapproval.
And let's see if you could get approved.
I say yeah.
To be honest, I didn't want a house.
I bought a duplex.
I wanted something to get my feet wet, to get started,
learn how to become a landlord,
learn how to maintain a property.
So like that I could buy more.
At first, I wanted to buy a fourplex, but for-
if you want to buy for the first time,
you cannot buy a fourplex.
It has to be like a duplex.
That's what he told me.
Unless I should have used another mortgage lender.
Aight?
(laughing)
I was scared throughout the whole process.
I was second guessing myself a lot.
You always have this thing in the back of your mind.
Like if you fall this time, you might not be able to get up.
I was afraid of making a bad decision
and I think everybody is afraid of making a bad decision.
The only thing that helped me surpass that fear
is having good friends around me.
Like I have my friend Endy, my friend Yeifry.
I talk to them all the time.
They're homeowners, not only homeowners,
but Yeifry also is a landlord.
He has a couple of units.
Surrounding myself with somebody that looks like me.
That is Dominican like me and also is doing it
gave me the motivation to move forward and do it.
Go-
That gave me the courage to move forward
and buy the property.
And so one thing I didn't know that-
If I'm gonna have confidence in buying a home,
I need to write it all out.
So I had to write down how much I make,
how much will rent be?
How much can I make in the future?
Can I make a living out of this?
What are gonna be my monthly payments?
What are gonna be my taxes?
Because you have to-
A lot of times people don't realize,
when you buy a home, you don't only pay mortgage payments.
You pay property taxes and you also pay insurance.
If my mortgage payments is this,
let's say it's $2,000 a month, right?
That's more than what my rent is, you know?
But then you also gotta calculate property taxes.
Well, how much will property taxes be on top of that?
I needed to crunch the numbers together
(beeping)
and say, okay, how much am I going to be paying?
But at the same time, I'm also building equity.
As long as if it's a duplex or a multiunit,
somebody else is also helping me pay down this mortgage.
And if 30 years, the property is worth a million dollars,
and somebody else helped me pay for it,
I just feel like I took a shortcut.
(laughing)
All right, so I was like, let me find the agent.
My friend hooked me up with this agent.
She was a woman that had a lot of years within the industry.
I needed somebody with experience.
Cause it was my first time buying.
Throughout the whole thing, it's like, it's a commitment.
Why you think I'm still single?
I'm single because I can't be committed with people.
You know what I mean?
30 years is a commitment.
Buying property is a commitment, son.
The first agent that I talked to,
she did pawn me off to a newer agent,
be it the new agent, she was good, she was cool.
You know, but since she was new,
and she's only been a year within the business,
I needed somebody with more confidence
because I was not buying a single family home.
I was buying a multiunit, that's one.
And two, I don't know the neighborhoods.
Another thing I didn't know is
you don't have to sign a contract with agent.
If the agent says here, sign this contract
that you're only going to work with me, run son.
I did that.
So I met a second agent.
The second agent was a person that had more experience,
she's Latina, which I was very excited about.
But when I asked her like, listen,
I'm trying to buy a property for 500,000,
she told me there is no property around that price range,
But then I'll get on realtor.com.
and I see more properties that come from them,
and less that were in this.
And so I was like, I can't work with her.
It's going to be hard for me to find properties with her.
When the agent that I already had before,
show me a wide range of listings of properties.
Afterwards, I met Rosa.
Real estate agent's like finding a girlfriend,
you know what I mean?
Like, you go through a lot of people you date around
until you find the one, you be like, yes,
this is the one. (men singing)
I sat down with Rosa,
Rosa listen, it was like,
yeah hey Rosa, mira, this is my price range.
And this woman's telling me
that there's no property available.
She was like, well, look at this,
look at all these properties available.
Look at this, that look like it's available to me.
(laughing)
And she was like, listen,
you don't even need to do a contract with me.
She was the one that told me like, listen,
you don't need to sign a contract
where the real estate agent,
when you're gonna buy a property.
And I was like-
(speaking foreign language)
She broke it down to me, she was like,
let me talk to your lender,
sat down with me and went over the listings.
It was like, this is a good one.
This is not a good one.
I like this one for you.
So this was the first time a real estate agent asked me,
like, yo, these properties you like,
can you talk to me a little bit more about them
and why you liked them and stuff like that.
So, at first it was like,
I would just write a list of properties and see it.
But I never had somebody sit down with me
and discuss the properties.
And I think that made the process easier for me.
Matter of fact, give her a list of property.
And for me, this one was the cheapest
outta all the properties.
And I saw that it was remodeled.
I was like, I want that one.
And she said it was in escrow.
So I was like, I'm not going to get it.
Okay, escrow.
Escrow is the in-between party in a sense,
Let's say, I'm going to buy something from you.
Escrow is the transaction, you put the money there,
you put like a deposit there.
Escrow holds onto the deposit and they say, okay,
we're gonna hold on to this deposit.
If the contract comes through,
then you get your deposit back
or whatever you guys negotiated.
Or the deposit goes straight to the owner.
They hold money within, they make sure that the transaction,
the purchasing transaction happens.
You bought the property, the whatever cash that needed
put as a down payment goes straight to the sellers
and you become the owner of this property.
So it's like the in between to make sure
that everything goes copasetic.
That's what I see escrow as.
I could be wrong.
And if I'm wrong,
(snapping)
The real definition's right there.
And Rosa was, listen, the seller's agent said
that he's not too sure about these buyers.
They fell out of escrow twice before.
And she was like,
(speaking foreign language)
Well, I got somebody here that's ready to buy.
(speaking foreign language)
Tell me what you're gonna say, what you're gonna do.
She talked to the seller's agent, like listen,
I know who these people are, that-
She knew the owners of the property.
Tell me what you need so we can make this deal.
The buyers that were in contract,
they didn't put in the money into escrow on time.
So the buyer's agent was like-
(speaking foreign language)
They got outta escrow,
and then we went into escrow.
And when that happened, we were in escrow,
(speaking foreign language)
California is on lockdown.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
(speaking foreign language)
The COVID-19.
(speaking foreign language) (dramatic music)
Should we get out of the deal?
(speaking foreign language)
I don't think I want to be buying-
She was like,
you still got to pay rent wherever you're go.
I'm like-
(speaking foreign language)
Let's keep going.
(laughing)
I'm nervous, I'm scared.
This place does have foundation issues.
But Rosa knew how to calm me down.
She's like, listen,
I'm here with you throughout the whole process.
If this has foundation issue, I'm gonna find the right guy
that's going to give you the right price.
She also got a credit for me.
So I got a credit during the negotiation.
And what that means is, the sellers pay
for the closing costs.
Now the sellers pay for the closing cost.
Since I'm a veteran, I am, I have 100% financing,
whatever the earnest money deposit I put in,
I get back.
Earnest money deposit.
Earnest money deposit is what you put into escrow,
(speaking foreign language)
You put in only like 1% and the escrow money deposit,
or you can even put only a $1000.
And you're sayin' like,
this is me saying that I am serious
about buying this property.
If I don't buy it,
and because of me and something that's my fault,
the earnest money deposit goes to the seller.
This property went back and forth with the negotiation.
We were able to close.
This property does need some work,
it doesn't need crazy amount of work,
I already fixed the foundation.
I am happy that I was able to purchase my first home.
Front unit is a three bedroom.
The back unit is a two bedroom,
a Latino family lives there.
And now I'm working on renovating the back storage
into a one bedroom apartment.
(speaking foreign language)
It could be a one bedroom apartment or a studio.
Thank you guys for watching.
That was my process of me buying this home.
Hopefully you guys got something out of it.
If you're afraid of buying a home,
hopefully that this gave you the courage to be like,
(speaking foreign language)
I could move forward.
Make sure you save money.
If it's your first time buying,
there's something called FHA,
first time home buyers,
you only have to put down 3.5% of the purchase price.
Thank you guys for watching.
(speaking foreign language)
(calming music)
- [Child] Pero Like.