- In this video you'll learn
about the pros and cons of buying a home
when you're married or single.
That's starting right now.
- [Narrator] Welcome to Homebuyer's School
brought to you by Brookfield Residential.
- Hi everyone, I'm Karl.
Welcome to another Homebuyer's School video.
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So, today, I'm joined by
local realtor Brad McCallum
with Re Max First,
and the topic we're gonna answer is,
"What are the pros and cons
"of buying a home when you're single,
"and when you're married?"
So, Brad, let's start with being single.
What are some pros about buying a home when you're single?
- I think the biggest thing is,
home buying is a lot like investing.
So, the sooner you start, the better.
The better for your long term wealth,
and it's gonna give you so many more options
later on in life,
so don't wait to find a perfect soulmate
just to find the perfect home.
Buy a property,
get into it.
And then, some of the other pros, of course,
of owning your own home,
is you're building equity in it every month.
Even if it's just a little bit to start.
The challenge with everyone when they buy their first home,
whether you're single, or married, or not,
is that it takes a few years to where those payments
really start to be more principal than interest.
So, getting started on that journey sooner
is going to just,
result in higher net worth for yourself.
Which is great.
But, of course, some of the other pros of being single
and buying your own place,
is that,
generally, I've found that the people who do that,
they have other opportunities for income.
And one of those incomes might be
to rent out one of the bedrooms,
or rent out one of the suites.
There's things that I would be more comfortable
as a single guy,
say renting out my basement or another room in my house
and getting some extra income,
some help on the mortgage,
versus maybe once I had my family in there,
I wouldn't be quite as comfortable
because I want that space for us.
- Yes, that's right.
It's interesting though,
what I heard too about buying, let's say as a single person,
your first starter home.
You can't really see it as your lifelong home, right?
And I think sometimes maybe people see it as like,
"I'm buying a home.
"That's it, that's where I'm gonna live forever."
and like,
probably not.
Because most likely, you'll find a significant other
and you'll move in and, right?
And you'll start a family or whatever that is,
and that home's probably not gonna be
big enough, right? - That's true.
The reality is, is the numbers say
that people change homes every five to seven years.
And so, if you enter the process,
then you're going to be able to make a good decision
based on that five to seven year horizon,
rather than thinking,
"This has gotta be something that meets my needs
"25 years from now."
- So let's take a look at the cons
for a single person buying a home.
- Yeah, I'd say the biggest con
is potentially just job-loss.
So, each individual is going to have their own situation.
Maybe they've been at a company for a long time,
maybe they're their own business owner,
they feel really confident in their job.
That might give you the confidence to go out
and make the idea to purchase a home.
If you're moving into a brand new position at work,
or you're starting a brand new job,
you've only been there for three or four months,
or maybe you are just in the middle of,
say, your trial period, your first year.
It might be something that you want to consider
because if you have job-loss,
how will that affect your ability
to cover that mortgage cost?
Those are some of the cons, I would say, about it,
but that's
that's the con that we have
whether you're renting,
whether you're owning, right?
Those are economic challenges.
- Let's go into being married.
So what are some of the pros about owning,
or buying a home and owning it when you're married?
- When you're married,
and maybe you have a family,
I think there's a lot of pros to home ownership.
I think the biggest thing for me
would be just the security it provides the family.
You want to have a secure, safe,
sort of,
space away from the rest of the world for your family.
And, home ownership allows you to paint the walls
the colors that you want,
to decorate it just how you want,
and to build your life right there.
The challenge with renting, of course,
is that your hopes, your dreams, your home,
is in the hands of your landlord.
Might be a great landlord,
but then again, your landlord and all of his life,
or her life,
they might decide wow they're in a spot
where they need to sell the property, or something else,
so you're just exposing your family
to maybe a little bit more potential upheaval.
And give me one con of if you're married
and home ownership?
- I would say, if you're married,
with home ownership,
it could be a transfer at work,
it could be an economic change.
Maybe you've moved to a new place
and you're not yet sure if you know the community,
you understand the community really well.
Maybe you see something in your life changing
in the next few years,
like you're thinking about expanding your family.
Those are times that it might be a con
to actually purchase something,
because your needs might drastically change
a year or two from now.
So, it's really helpful to, maybe, just be confident
about your situation first,
so you're not absorbing all of those extra costs
of a quick move.
- Perfect.
So, Brad, do you have any additional tips
for single and married people when buying their home?
- Absolutely.
The most important thing with home ownership
is you just start early.
The sooner you start,
the sooner you'll start to build that wealth
and that equity in that property.
And, life comes with a ton of surprises,
there's job losses, there's change,
there's all these unknowns that we can never
sort of factor in,
but over time,
if that equity is built up in your home,
it's going to give you a bit of a safety blanket
to weather some of those storms.
- And if you want to actually know more
about renting versus owning,
we've got a great video I'm gonna leave up here,
and the description below.
So, the question of the day I have for you is,
When did you buy your first home?
Were you married or single?
Was it harder or easier when you bought that home
in that situation?
Let us know in the comments section below.
So, if you want to know more information
about home buying,
check out our playlists here and here
as well as don't forget to subscribe,
and I'll see you in our next video.