6 Tips To Choose The Right House

How do you choose the right house to buy and stay on budget? Should you try to keep your monthly home expenses under 25% or is 30% okay? Let us help you know exactly what to look for and questions to ask when buying your home.

After traveling to more than 25 states in an RV, we recently bought our first home and want to share with you 6 tips that most helped us.

Time Stamps:
0:00 - Intro
0:10 - Tip #1
0:36 - Setting your budget amount
2:45 - Tip #2
5:26 - Tip #3
7:25 - Tip #4
8:00 - Defining your must haves
9:00 - Tip #5
11:40 - Tip #6

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PS: If you have an Amazon Alexa, I have a daily flash briefing called 30 Second Money.

[amberhuseth]

When YNAB and Nick are both perfectly timed to release videos to help me with my current life problems and questions

[no]

There is SO much wisdom here. So important. Thank you for sharing your advice! I just subscribed.

[NathanEckelTV]

Glad you heard that noise in time! Also, GENIUS tip about discussing renovation expectations, expenses FIRST and then putting that in the house budget upfront - definitely noting that for next time @Nick .

[Far_Dad]

I really enjoyed this video. The sneak peaks of the renovations, thank you for sharing.

[cyserrano]

This video was super helpful! We're just starting our house buying adventure, so definitely appreciate the tips. I love your videos. Keep 'em coming!

[Michelle-byfp]

Our mortgage is 38% of our take home pay 😫 we are kind if house poor. But as you spoke about values, I stay at home with our kids and so the neighborhood is also important since we live in a high crime city but our neighborhood is good

[melissah]

After college I moved to Alaska with whatever would fit into my car. Two years later I moved back and again had to sell everything and only take what would fit in the car. When I moved back, I found a nice 3 bedroom house to rent, but had NO furniture and was broke from the move. I put a bunch of furniture all on credit cards (including a fridge and a washer & dryer). 7 months later and I'm still paying it off, BUT I was able to use credit cards that had 0% APR until July 2021, so at least I haven't paid any interest :) I'm hoping to buy a home soon, and luckily I will already have furniture and appliances to take with me, but paying off these cards has been a huge pain. I would definitely not recommend doing it this way unless you have to!

[BeaSiegal]

Do these tips work? Yes!
I watched this vid last year after my pre-approval and closed last week. This was the most helpful vid on my playlist because as a second time buyer, I wanted to avoid mistakes I made with my first time buying experience.

My results by each tip:

1. Monthly Payment: Just under 30% of net pay
2. Area: Found home in 1st choice of 3 preferred areas
3. Get familiar: N/A I was already familiar
4. Priorities: Home has all must haves, most nice to haves, and a lot of “didn’t know I needed this!”
5. Budget for furnishing: I’m a big thrifter but needed w/d, d/w, window coverings, and beds new. This vid reminded me to save more
6. Patience: YES!! I almost bought a home that needed total rehab because I didn’t like the right home existed in my budget. Patience made me realize that I don’t have the experience or desire to deal with large scale repairs/renovations. I’m glad I waited and I now know my dream home as a century cape cod in a lakefront community with 10 minute commute and we’ll within my budget. I “fell in love” with my home so to speak.

Good luck those still looking and watch this vid a few times to help it sink in.

[musicandmore]

Very helpful. Need to have to expectations chat with my husband 🤣🤣🤣

[prestontucker]

Can you guys do an episode about tips when considering building a new home?

My family and I are currently in a home that we love, and we could stay here for 10+ years, but if we were to leave it, we would want to build a custom home and that process is a little intimidating. Any advice is appreciated!

[GreenCatQueen]

8:01 I love that you threw in the Hobbit hole on the right.

[pajamamama]

Great video. Loving this series. In the area we want to move to, the monthly house related budget would be way over 25 percent. We decided to wait and continue to save, so that we can put down a larger amount in order to lower the monthly mortgage payment and hope to eliminate PMI as well. Could be a while. That patience part is a crucial tip!

[notnotnever]

When you are discussing budget for renovations and furnishings, is that spreadsheet something you're using? I'd definitely be interested in how you two use spreadsheets to plan, if so! Thanks for the great video!

[journeytowisdomandwealth]

Great video and tips and I am definitely on the right track, but some things I had to learn the hard way.. Great tips

[kristadavis]

Thanks for the tips.
I actually hadn’t thought about spending time in the areas before choosing. We are buying our first home in the same county we already live in. However, our county is made of several small country towns and the town we currently live outside of is the only one with real stores and restaurants, so we would have to drive here anyway for that and our family business. However, it’s housing prices, especially with land is double all the other towns.

[MichaelStanton]

Nice, luckily we're at the 28% of take home. We just bought our second home (selling first) during COVID fixed interest rates.

[kristadavis]

Any recommendations on where to buy the furnishings? We are also coming from an RV for 12 years with a family of 5.

[DanielBastionMusic]

Great video!!! I have a somewhat random question, what's the project management app shown at ~9:37? Is that Airtable?

[mad-bilj]

Great tips! All of your recent content really made me rethink what I want for my next house and now I have much better clarity- thank you!
What are your suggestions for a really hot market? Where I want to live, houses are gone the day they're listed. So theres not time to walk the area etc what do you do when there's not very much time to really think about that specific house as thoroughly as you suggest?

[nathanboler]

8:42 Hanna with the pickaxe LETS GOOOO