I've been thinking of buying a first house for a while now, but between the crazy prices currently and wanting to save a bit more for a down payment I've decided to hold off for another year. In an absolutely ideal world I'd be moving into the house in September 2022.
My question is, if that's the hope, when should I start actively doing things? When should I look into mortgage pre-approval? When do I contact a real estate agent? Are there other very early things I should be doing?
Also, I know the maximum I can afford for a monthly mortgage payment (guess I'll find out if a lender agrees), but how I do use that to figure out what my potential price range is? When I Google for mortgage calculators they were all on websites that wanted me to submit actual applications. Relatedly, is there a good rule of thumb for how much the size of a down payment impacts mortgage rates?
Submitted May 30, 2021 at 11:42PM by Fezrock https://ift.tt/3wXNlSj
