March 24, 2021 -

By Samantha Sharf March 24, 2021
https://money.com/how-to-buy-a-first-home

Madina Gildenberg and her boyfriend relocated from Brooklyn to the Phoenix area in 2014 with the idea that it would be easier to one day buy a home there. Neither had a job when they moved, but they figured they could find work that paid almost as much as they might earn in New York, while the cost of living would be much lower.

By late 2020 Gildenberg had saved enough for a down payment and figured mortgage rates were as low as they would ever be. She was ready. The problem? Her boyfriend was not. He’d recently switched to a lower paying field and hadn’t made as much financial progress. She went ahead anyway, closing on a townhome in Tempe last month.

“I’m the owner. He is the boyfriend,” says Gildenberg, now 27. “This was an important mental switch I had to make. He can’t contribute much at all, so I had to stop waiting for him.”

Plenty of first-time homebuyers can surely relate to Gildenberg’s story. While young people want to own homes just as much as ever, achieving that dream in today’s economy often means re-setting traditional expectations, getting creative and making big financial sacrifices. For many, it means all of the above.

The odds can seem daunting: Last year, the share of first-time homebuyers hit the lowest point in over three-decades, and the average age of homebuyers recently hit 47 — up from the early 30s in the 1990s when most young people’s parents were first buying. At the same time, the number of people at prime starter home age keeps surging, while the number of properties on the market keeps shrinking.

READ THE REST AT: https://money.com/how-to-buy-a-first-home

Day: March 24, 2021

2021 Real Estate Myth Buster [INFOGRAPHIC]

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