growing up i know i was personally told hey live at home with your parents especially as a female
until you get married and then you move out with your husband
and get your home so for me i wanted to do things a little bit differently
my name is chris onyencuci i am 30 years old and i just bought my first home in lawrenceville georgia
which is about 30 minutes from atlanta my home was 252 thousand dollars
i am a recruiter at one of the big four accounting firms and i work from home and make 95 000
a year so this home is approximate wait so did we just see that her down payment
was only 1.8 of the cost of the home and she just said that she makes 95 000 a year
okay so let's just let's do some really quick simple math her house was about two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars twenty percent of that would be about fifty thousand dollars
as someone that makes ninety five thousand dollars and was living at home it is very very
reasonable and achievable to be able to save up fifty thousand dollars in just a year
that's if you live a modest lifestyle if you live even more modestly and if you are a very
frugal person you could save that money in less than a year some of us want to splurge a little
and so maybe we don't want to live a tight lifestyle like that and so maybe you give
yourself 18 months or even two years to save up 50 000 however there is no reason
why with that sort of salary she should have only put down 1.8 percent interest or 1.8 percent on
the cost of the house simply because she's going to be charged mortgage insurance
and mortgage insurance is i mean it protects you if you can't make the mortgage payments
however it's an extra bill if you don't pay down at least 20 of the house and that usually ranges
between a couple extra 100 bucks a month and it can be more than that so it's just kind of like
if we pay more for the house we save more on the back end but just something to think about
only 1850 square feet and it has three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms this is my living space
which includes my kitchen one of my favorite parts of the home as i do love to cook
i love to bake i love to entertain the base floor has a powder room and the living space kitchen
and a dining space as well while the upper level has all the bedrooms two full bathrooms and then
a laundry room and here we have the master living space which includes my lovely bed
the theme for this room is definitely dreamy and chic
being a first-time homebuyer i was told that there were so many different opportunities and so many
different grants and assistance programs that would be able to assist me while on my search
unfortunately i did not qualify for a lot of the assistance programs here in georgia due to
income and or various other factors i decided to find a neighborhood and explore lenders that way
after i decided on where i wanted to live versus getting pre-approved on the front end i know a big
misconception i had when i was looking i thought i had to put down that 20 to get a home i would say
some of the the hard things are so i can certainly appreciate her vulnerability and her honesty
i think her misconception was like it's not a misconception um there are some truths to it
so the 20 is a recommended amount of money to put down for a traditional mortgage
um no it's not a requirement if you're using you know an fha loan or a va loan or loans um
that are not traditional loans however as i've said previously paying that 20 down
does relieve you of having to pay the mortgage insurance or pmi so it's worth it
while it isn't a requirement i wouldn't look at it as oh the bank is doing me a favor because they
let me pay down less than 20 percent i think that we have to really really embrace the importance
of interest rates and compound interest and how little things like paying a little bit more down
on a home can really really save us thousands like literally thousands of dollars in the long run
um you know and honestly it can be the difference in you know at the end of your mortgage payments
it could be the difference in paying an extra hundred thousand dollars so little things like
that really do matter if you have the means to pay it if you don't then you don't and that's
okay but i just want people to know the option is there for a reason that is beneficial to you
kind of like realities of owning a home by yourself is it is by yourself your income
it's on you your credit score is just on you and obviously once you move in all the expenses are on
you so that has probably been some of the toughest things for me to kind of come to reality with
i did feel worried taking on an additional debt the only thing that really kind of
gave me flawless was that i knew a home would be more of a long-term investment
no no no no no no no no we gotta talk about this first of all we see that she
has 78 000 in outstanding debt in addition to the amount of debt that she has sustained or
inquired you know acquired from the home purchase but what is disturbing is that she said she was
nervous about having debt and then purchasing a home pro tip if you are nervous about it then it's
not the right time you want to feel good knowing that if you purchased your home you don't have
to worry about how you're going to pay bills you don't have to worry about how you're going to put
food on the table you don't want to have any sort of stress around purchasing a home i understand
it's a big deal and there may be some anxiety that comes along with that and that's totally natural
but if you're nervous about the amount of debt that you have then that is the perfect opportunity
to take a moment step back reflect and think if this is really the right time for you to be making
such a transformative life decision that is going to be financially uh heavy on you so no i i don't
necessarily agree with anyone making a purchase under those sorts of pretenses however i know that
sometimes we hit a certain age and we're like i need to do this and i that's totally fine but just
let's just make sure that we think about the money we're spending when we've got so much old money
that has to be spent on old debts so this car loan for forty seven thousand dollars i personally
would have gotten rid of my forty seven thousand dollar car before i purchased a two hundred and
fifty thousand 000 home reason being is because that 47 000 purchase is more than likely one of
the factors that raised um the interest rate due to her credit score your credit to debt ratio
plays a huge part in the type of interest rate that you're going to ultimately get so you want
to try to reduce your expenses anything that you owe money on you want to reduce those drastically
before you purchase a home or you're going to be paying a whole lot more for it in entry i know the
interest seems small now but it's going to feel big later okay just just girl don't make me snatch
my wig off because y'all are killing me with these some of these decisions but hey we're all here to
learn honey we're all here to learn this year i plan to host thanksgiving so i'm excited to
open the table out and have my family in town here as well so my parents immigrated here from ghana
which is in west africa to live the american dream and make a better life for themselves
i knew back in about 2018 that i wanted to move out of my parents house the following year first
reason why i chose atlanta georgia was cost of living definitely way more affordable for someone
especially on a single income and then secondly i was just able to find more of what i was looking
for in terms of a new construction and then also being in a more metropolitan suburban area
i thought i chose one but once i got back home and started doing some research i
realized it just wasn't really a fit for me so i had asked my realtor too who lives in
atlanta to continue the search for me virtually luckily he would just send me different videos
different neighborhoods trying to get my opinion and
once he sent me the video of this neighborhood i knew just virtually that was pretty much sold
finding especially a good neighborhood a good county that has really good schools
and an area that's not too far from downtown i figured that this is just the right time for me
and luckily for me things just aligned where
when i applied through the preferred lender i was approved immediately
all right so again congratulations to her for
owning a home for purchasing a home you know she seems like a very well-educated woman um
you know very very um high achieving which is really really great um i just want to like tell
people to think about the purchases that they're making during a pandemic because the pandemic is
not over so while she closed on her home at the start of the pandemic which she probably didn't
predict was going to you know affect her i think that we have to still be very mindful
of the times that we're living in and whether or not again this is the right time to be making
large purchases just because we do not know the state of the economy we cannot predict what the
economy is going to be like at any point so just always something to keep in mind
so my realtor met me here with the keys and you know gave me a quick tour of the place
and then once he was leaving he just looked at me he was like are you okay and i'm like
yeah this just all felt really surreal that you know i was standing in something that was
mine and that i had worked hard to get and now it was kind of like my baby to help raise and dream
the only thing is i wish i could have gotten a better interest rate
maybe doing it now during the pandemic times when interest rates were a little bit lower than when i
initially went under contract in october i wish that i would have saved more money outside of
closing costs and down payment because once i did move in although you know
my closing costs and down payment were completed i think i only had about 2 000
left at that time to furnish the rest of the home or to furnish the home
i wish that i would have saved an additional 10k before moving in
so one thing i want to commend this young lady on is you know her transparency in saying
i wish i had done things differently i wish i had saved more money you know i think that self
reflection you know is is big and and we have to learn from our decisions sometimes we make
good decisions and sometimes we make decisions that we wish we would have done differently
however what she's saying is absolutely true um wanting to save more money before she moved
into a house or purchased a house would have been ideal um it would have been in my opinion
the smarter thing to do again beautiful young lady very very i can tell she's super educated
so i know that she made her decision you know just based on her own thing how she was feeling however
saving more money um is always a good idea especially when making a home purchase again
she says that she wish she had a better interest rate so maybe paying down some more of her debt
before she purchased a home it definitely would have improved her interest rate and her monthly
mortgage amount that she's paying um but just you know it's let's learn and i'm glad she learned it
i came back the home was so quiet i was like oh this is not the same it's kind of lonely
moving down to atlanta on faith i did not have and still don't really have too many friends
and obviously my family is based out of the dmv area so i did make a sacrifice moving down here
by myself and also moving in a home by myself as well without any roommates
so it has been an adjustment just learning to make new friends meet new people and get out and about
to learn the area buying a home has made me happier because it's made me feel more independent
it's made me feel like i have something that's truly mine and something that i can fix up in
the way that i would like and not have to get anyone else's opinion on it and if i come in and
i don't like something it's my responsibility to change it up so it's definitely given me
more of a sense of being more of an adult and just made me a little bit more responsible especially
when it comes to finances it has made me and i would consider this kind of like my word for the
year is being fearless because i feel like if i can do this i can do so many other things that
i thought i couldn't do you know i can do it on my own i can definitely do it with somebody else
so i like how she just threw that in like if i can do it on my own i can do it with
somebody else like i think she's saying [ __ ] might be available something like that i
don't know but all all i want you guys to like ultimately take away from this video is like
just take your time with these sorts of decisions like there is no reason to rush
into buying a home um do it when you're ready don't do it when you hit a milestone age don't do
it when your family is pressuring you do it when your bank account your finances and your credit
score agree that it's a good time for you to do this otherwise y'all gonna make me snatch off my
wig honey now i don't want to hear about anybody else moving or rushing or saying i wish i had to
save more money because it came from me i told you what you need to do before you
go out and make these purchases don't have me come up to your house snatch on my week because
you guys got it from me you know what to do now if you have any other questions always feel
free to come and talk to me i will answer any questions that you have i know so many people
i know so many people that can help answer questions that i don't know the answer to so never
be afraid to be honorable and say i don't know something i need help that's all you have to do
we all need help i need help you need help let's help each other so for more videos and advice
like this don't forget to like and subscribe so you could be the first to hear from wah toodles