Get Your Down-Payment & Savings Ready

Moving home is a costly process, and buying for the first time is even more intimidating because you need to get a down-payment together, rather than having the equity secured in an asset (the home you’d be selling if you were moving home). Make sure you have your down-payment ready to go – traditionally, it should be around 20% of the price of the kind of home you wish to purchase, though as house prices have gone up, the down-payment necessary for mortgages has come down (some to as low as 3%). Talk to your mortgage broker about what you can afford with the down-payment you have. (More on that shortly.)
Also don’t forget to have some put aside for other costs, such as homeowners’ insurance and property taxes, title fees, appraisal and survey fees, and state recording fees, if necessary. Closing costs are usually around 1-5% of the purchase price, depending on your lender and location.