Buying a home

[Ntypical]

Well we closed on our house, and can start moving in January. Here are a few things I learned during the whole experience.

1. Do not use your VA loan unless you plan on living there for 10 years or more. VA loans are all well and good. They are fairly easy percentage wise and they are all fixed rate APRs now. But, the VA charges a 1.5% service charge. So lets say you buy your home with a VA lone. Then you have to move because of a new job, orders, etc and you use your VA lone to buy another house where every you move to. The 1.5% service charge is now 3%. They add 1.5% to that service charge every time you use it.

2. Do not buy points unless you intend on staying there for many years. That thousand dollars is generally better in your pocket because even if it is a brand new home, there will be things that come up. That one point you could have bought will not save you more money in that three years than the repairs or other unexpected costs that WILL come up.

3. Use your credit union. Most credit unions have something called the Veterans choice home loan, or Active Duty�s choice home loan. These are very similar to VA loans. But it is a fixed 1.5% service charge, that does not add up if you decide to use it again later. So it is 1.5% no matter how many times you use it. And I found that Navy Federal Credit Union, and Bank of America tend to have lower interest rates than the VA loans.

4. Use a realtor. Yes they take a percentage. But it is much easier than dealing with just the seller and their attorney. And most of the time the Realtor is able to get the seller to eat most of the closing costs. It is just stupid not to go with a realtor.


This is the second home I have purchased. I think it is almost idiotic to live in base housing for the simple fact that you are throwing your BAH away and getting no return. Same thing goes for renting. My wife and I rented for the first two years we were married. I paid six hundred dollars a month to stay in that apartment. That is about fourteen thousand dollars that I will never see again. We bought our first home for seventy two thousand. We lived there for three years. I put about ten thousand dollars into it. We just sold the house for a hundred and twenty nine thousand. That is fifty seven thousand dollars in my pocket. That is more than a years pay for me. Granted this may not always be the case, as it depends on what the market looks like, and we were lucky to get so much out of it. But it worked out well for us.

[Otter]

good look