Having something to your name, it feels great.
Like people will say, "You don't own the home, the bank owns the home,"
but if your name is on the title, you own it.
Our home was priced at $599,000 and we put 10 percent down.
I'm Ver Starr. I'm Jenelle Yee, and we just bought our first home in
Gardena, California, which is 20 minutes south of Los Angeles.
We were looking for a place for almost a year and a half.
We knew right away that this was going to be a longer-term home for us.
We put the offer down immediately when we actually viewed it.
So I actually work remote and location for me wasn't a huge factor.
Ver actually works in Santa Monica.
So we do like that it allows him to have that commuter experience.
So he does take the buses and train over to work.
We have a two-car garage where that opens up into the front door area,
which is like a den. It's an open floor plan, so we have a huge couch with
a TV. We have solar panels which are owned outright so we don't lease
them. They just came baked into the price of the home.
And that hopefully brings down our costs on electricity.
Alright, this little room right here is actually just right next to the
living room. It's just like a den.
As you could see, it's a computer setup.
This is my area.
So here in my home office, I have converted it from one of the two guest
bedrooms. So now I have an L-shaped desk with dual monitors, and a lot of
my work is done digitally because it is a remote type of role.
When it's a real estate agent who's representing the buyer,
the buyer actually doesn't pay anything to the real estate agent that is
representing them. It's actually baked into the sales price of the selling
home and the seller.
So typically closing costs for buyers is like 3 percent.
I think it was about two years ago that we really decided we wanted to
stop renting. Prior to moving to L.A.,
we both lived in Austin, Texas.
And once we moved to L.A.,
the rent doubled. And then once we got here, the rent just kept increasing
every year since we were already paying rent close to $3,000.
We were looking at monthly payments that would be around that.
All throughout high school and college, I was also working multiple
positions. Along with those savings, I started working for a non-profit
part-time remote along with working a full-time job, so that helped me
save a little bit faster and also build my capital.
And along with savings, I do have investment accounts and retirement
funds. Since I work remote,
I usually just eat at home, and I don't really need to go out for lunch or
anything like that. I make my own cold brew, and this is why we were able
to get a house because I save money on coffee.
When we first started looking for homes all throughout California, ranging
from Burbank to Glendale, all of the homes were priced at $700,000 or
$800,000 or even higher.
So that was pretty hard for us to kind of budget it out.
Usually the prices will be a little lower if you just have to commute an
extra 20 or 30 minutes.
So for example, we're in Gardena, California.
It's about 20 to 30 minutes away from central L.A.
and also the main part of the city.
So that was a little bit of a sacrifice we had to make.
When we spoke with a real estate agent, they wanted us to get pre-approved
and that involves, you know, having your W-2s, your tax statements, your
proof of funds and then, you know, submitting it to a lender.
The reason why we went with Wells Fargo for this one was because they were
offering credits towards closing costs and upgrades.
We were able to get $15,000 in credits.
So we used that partially for closing costs as well as upgrades like the
floors, the cabinets, tile, the bathroom.
And we got a pretty good rate at 4.125
percent on a 30-year, fixed rate loan.
You do have to pay for things outside of the mortgage, outside of the
loan, outside of the down payment, such as an inspection.
It's a new build. So there wasn't a lot of issues with that.
We knew about closing costs.
We knew that since we put less than 20 percent down, we would have PMI.
Fortunately, it's not like a couple hundred.
It's actually less than $100 for our PMI.
When you're a homeowner, you don't have a landlord, you don't have a
property manager to, you know, submit a work form or, you know, get a new
fridge, you have to take care of it yourself.
If you have bug problems, that's on you.
You know, if something breaks, that's on you as well.
The first step, get pre-approved.
See how much you're making, how much you have saved up, and then how much
you can afford. Don't open any lines of credit when you're in the process.
Like the underwriters typically are the ones who make the decision.
So, you know, they're looking at your credit score, they're looking at
debt to income ratio. Those things that I mentioned.
We were very lucky because, you know, Jenelle was transitioning jobs.
So don't do that.
Like don't try to get a new job.
Don't quit your job. Make sure that you have proof of funds and proof of
income when you're in the process.
Buying a house or just a property or anything like that.
It's like once you go through it once, you know that you can get through
it. Now that we understand the process firsthand, I think it's definitely
something we can do in the future.