House Buying Horrors

Hey there my friend! I’ve been slow on email lately but I’ll blame bachelor parties, fishing trips, and trying to make YouTube videos.

That said, I plan to keep sending emails when able but the best place to catch my latest content is on YouTube.

We just crossed 750 subscribers and are now on the final stretch to 1,000. If you haven’t subscribed yet I’d greatly appreciate your support!

My wife and I recently bought our first house in our 20s.

And honestly, there were a few things I wish we would have known before going through the process.

Not because buying a house was a bad decision.

But because knowing these things earlier would have saved us money, stress, and probably a few tough conversations along the way.

Here are the 4 biggest lessons.

When people talk about buying a house, they almost always focus on the mortgage payment.

It matters, but there are a lot of other costs that hit before you ever move in.

For example, once our offer was accepted, we paid for inspections. We did a home inspection and a termite inspection, and all in, we were probably around $750 to $1,000.

The thing is, if the inspection finds something you don’t like and you walk away, you still eat that cost.

Then come closing costs.

I knew closing costs were a thing, but I was expecting maybe $3,000 to $5,000.

Ours ended up being closer to $14,000.

That included things like property taxes, insurance premiums, title fees, lender fees, and other costs that don’t always get talked about when people say, “I only put X% down.”

So if you’re saving for a house, don’t just save for the down payment.

Save for the full cost of getting into the house.

Buying a house takes a lot of time.

You’re looking after work. You’re looking on weekends. You’re driving around to houses that look great online and then walking out two minutes later because something is off.

It gets tiring fast.

And when you get tired, it gets easy to rush.

But being patient was one of the best things we did.

Every time we looked at a house, we kept notes on what we liked and didn’t like. Over time, that made it much easier to know what we actually wanted.

It also helped us land the house we ended up buying.

The house came on the market, we looked at it, really liked it, and then it got pulled from the market.

Instead of rushing into something else, we stayed patient.

About two weeks later, it came back on the market, and we were ready to make a move.

If we had rushed into another house just because we were tired of looking, we would have missed it.

I know real estate agents can catch a lot of flak.

And I get it.

I actually had my real estate license in college, so I understand why some people are skeptical. Not every agent treats it like a professional job.

A good agent though can be a huge help, especially if you’re a first-time home buyer. Our agent helped us notice a number of things we would have missed.

Roof issues. Foundation concerns. Weird layouts. Bad drainage. Things about the backyard or neighbors that we weren’t thinking about.

Sometimes we would walk into a house, and within two minutes he would point out a few things, and we would know it wasn’t the one.

He also helped a lot during negotiations. We were actually on vacation in Dallas when we made the offer on our house. I remember being at breakfast with our friends when he called me about making a counter offer.

Three minutes later I hung up. We headed back home the next day with a closing date on the books and ended up buying our house for $15,000 under asking.

That alone made having a good agent worth it.

Inspections are important but they are not perfect.

They are usually going to catch the big stuff. Old AC. Roof damage. Foundation concerns. Bad windows. Major issues.

But they are not going to catch every little thing.

After moving in, we noticed things like mismatched paint in a few rooms and drainage issues that were hard to see because it hadn’t rained when we toured the house.

None of that was a deal breaker. It was a reminder that buying a house does not mean everything will be perfect.

There will be little things you missed. There will be things that break.

And there will be projects you did not expect.

That is just part of homeownership.

Overall, our home buying process went pretty smooth and buying a house is exciting.

But it is also expensive, stressful, and full of small decisions that can add up quickly.

So if you’re planning to buy your first home, take your time, run the numbers, and don’t let the excitement make the decision for you.

Have fun crib shopping. ~ Cade

PS: If you want to check out the video I did where I explained each of these more click here.

Trump Accounts Explained - Good X post breaking down the new Trump Accounts and how you can open one if you have children under 18.

Truth About Investing At All-Time Highs - YouTube video breaking down the numbers behind investing at all time highs. It is tough to do, but videos like this help you build confidence in long term investing even when it seems like things are overvalued.

As an engineer, I’ve never seen anything more true.

I like to think I started the trend for this meme. IFYKYK

Below is a list of featured products I have vetted personally, created, or used. These offers are just for you:

Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research. Thanks for reading, if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, etc. about the email don’t hesitate to send me a reply.