Finance Your Dream Home in Colorado Springs Imagine buying your dream home. Connect with a lender to help you make it happen.
Finance Your Dream Home in Colorado Springs
Imagine buying your dream home. Connect with a lender to help you make it happen.
Our team of local financing experts are ready to guide you through the home buying process. We are committed to fast, professional, courteous, and personal service to help you understand and feel at ease throughout the home buying process. Our trained and certified loan originators specialize in financing homes in the Colorado Springs area real estate market. We are prepared to find the right loan program with competitive rates and low down payments for you.
Finance Your Dream Home
With the housing market continuing to skyrocket, you may be feeling the urgency to purchase your dream home. But how can you finance that home? Maybe you’re concerned because you’ve had to tap into savings, or perhaps your credit has taken a hit or two. But don’t worry, there’s still hope. It’s all about knowing your options.
1. First Time Home Buyer Programs
There are several first time home buyer programs that can mean lower down payments and easier loans. Keep in mind that you may qualify for several different options or there may be only one that is the perfect fit. There are even specialized programs for low-income and “bad credit” clients. Your next step is to contact a local mortgage broker to talk through what may be the best option for you. Here are my recommendations for local professionals to help at every step of the process.
To qualify for first time home buyer programs specifically for Colorado, you’ll need to have at least a 620 credit score. You’ll also have to complete a CHFA education course, meet certain income criteria, pitch in at least $1k, and meet other CHFA lender qualifications.
2. Snowball Your Debt
If you’re unfamiliar with the term “debt snowball” this may sound a little strange. But the idea behind it is very sound.
First, you list out all of your debts in order of least to most. Then you pay minimum payments on everything but the smallest. Put that extra cash from the other payments into the smallest debt, and pay it off as quickly as possible.
Keep doing that until your debt is gone.
This can be great for financing your home because once your non-mortgage debt is paid off, you can afford to put more towards your mortgage, put back for your kid’s education, or maybe save a larger downpayment.
3. Take Care Of Your Current Home
If you’ve already bought a home and just aren’t satisfied with it, you’ll want to either sell your home off for a good profit, rent it out to a qualified renter or pay it off before you buy a new home. Only you can decide which of these options is right for you.
Some owners feel that renting out a home is risky and would never be comfortable with taking this route. Others see only the upside of gaining the appreciation on multiple homes. Your situation may also require you to sell in order to afford to buy your next home. These are all things to think through and risk levels to consider prior to picking up the phone.
4. Be Picky and Precise
It may be tempting to settle for something “good enough” when you’ve been looking for so long and it doesn’t seem like you’ll ever find your perfect home. But the fact is that if you buy something just “good enough”, you’ll ultimately end up right back where you are right now – trying to find your dream home all over again – or having to do costly construction and remodeling to turn this house into your dream home.
Even though you may end up having to look a little longer than you’d like, waiting for your dream home is the better option.
5. Choose a Budget and Stick With It
Take a good hard look at your incoming and outgoing cash flow. See if there’s anything you can get rid of (any redundancy such as Netflix, Hulu, and Youtube Premium), any monthly subscriptions that you might not even realize you still have (magazines, boxes, recurring payments to GoFundMe, etc.), and monitor how much you spend on things like eating out and deliveries.
There are many helpful apps both online or on mobile that can make budgeting easier. These apps show you where your money is going, recurring bills, debts owed, and so much more. Looking at these numbers can help you to understand how much you can truly afford to pay per month on your new home.
Most experts recommend that you not spend more than 25% of your monthly income on house payments.