How Millennials Can Purchase Homes

Recently Zach was featured in an article on inman.com about how millennials can achieve homeownership.

Many people have seen articles about reasons why millennials are either unable, or choosing to not purchase homes, but staff writer Marian McPherson takes a look at ways our generation can buy their dream home.

McPherson interviewed both Zach and Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial, to find out their opinions on how millennials can purchase homes without necessarily sacrificing their avocado toast and Starbucks.

Lowry provided some great insight on the best ways to make sure you have enough money to purchase a home. She recommends the following:

1. Create and stick to a budget
   It’s important to know how much money is coming in and how much money is going out. Creating a budget is not just about tracking where your money is going, but can also be about finding ways to increase the amount of money coming in.
2. Have emergency savings
   In general, it’s good to have emergency savings to cover 3 to 6 months of your expenses, but when thinking about purchasing and owning a home, it’s a good idea to have emergency savings just for your house. You never know if you’ll need to make an extensive repair or renovation.
3. Form a debt-reduction plan
   Track your debt and have an understanding of exactly how much money you owe, interest rates, and minimum payments. Create a plan to pay down your debt. Try to pay more than the minimum payments each month (even small amounts can help) and make sure that the additional amount you’re paying gets applied to the principle.
4. Find one additional method of bringing in income
   In order to maintain the same quality of life or your lifestyle, you can only cut so much. So when giving something up isn’t an option, look for another job or some other way of bringing in a little more money. This can go a long way when saving and reducing debt.

All of Lowry’s strategies focus on saving money, reducing your debt and planning for the future in order to purchase your dream home.

As a real estate agent, Zach was able to provide some insight on some of the more technical aspects of purchasing and home and provided McPherson with information about the typical misconceptions that people have when purchasing a home. For example, most people assume they need to have 20% saved to cover their downpayment, but there are other types of loans available with lower down payment options to consider. In addition, millennials can apply for various down payment assistance programs or grants to help supplement their down payment savings.

You can read the whole article here.

There are many different options available to people who are looking to purchase a home but are worried about the downpayment or monthly costs. Working with a real estate agent who has the knowledge and resources to help come up with the best plan for you is key. Zach is always available to meet with anyone interested in purchasing a home to provide some guidance on some of the options available when looking to buy a home. Contact him today!