Being a brand new homeowner is extremely exciting, but it can also be a stressful time for a lot of different reasons. If you have just purchased your first home or are in the process of doing so, you already know this firsthand. Not only is a home the most expensive thing you will likely ever purchase, but the whole process also is grueling and can really keep you up at night.
Even once your loan is approved to purchase the home of your choice, there can be other factors that can ultimately get in the way and make the deal fall through. This can be devastating if you are not prepared for it. Once you finally officially own your home, the stress and financial struggles don’t end there.
Continue Saving
You have probably been saving up money your entire life in order to be able to purchase your first home, and you finally got there! However, that does not mean you can stop saving money now. You will need additional money to begin renovating your home, decorating the interior, or working on the yard. There will also always be unexpected expenses that will come up with your home that will need to be fixed. For this reason, you should continue saving even after the sale has gone through.
Homeownership can involve a lot of unexpected costs that you may not have budgeted or accounted for, and you may not have a lot of money left after the initial major costs of buying the home itself. This can be hard to navigate, especially if it’s your first time. So here are 2 finance tips for new homeowners.
Work On Your Credit
You probably spent years working on your credit to get it high enough to be able to be pre-approved for a home loan, but the worst is not over yet. Unfortunately, your credit score is going to take a huge hit after purchasing a home. Of course, this will be a bigger problem for you if the score you started with wasn’t very high to begin with, but even if you had a near-perfect score, the fact that applying for a home loan will make it drop several points could cause you some issues.
After purchasing your home, be sure to take some time to work on your credit so that you can get it back up to where it was before. This may take up to a year, so be prepared in case you are unable to make any big purchases for a while.
Congratulations on becoming a homeowner! Keep working on your credit and saving as much money as possible so that you can have a wonderful experience, and before you know it you will be giving advice to others!