Category: Home Buying Tips

Home Buying Tips

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Two Years Since

by Kyle BurbankOct 15, 2025

It has come to my attention that I've reached a bit of a milestone. This week marks two years since my wife and I put in an offer on a house. Funny enough, shortly after we made that offer and it was accepted, we caught a flight to Hong Kong and continued the process of moving toward closing from the other side of the world. Shortly after our return home...

Home Buying Tips

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Can I Refinance Yet?

by Kyle BurbankOct 1, 2025

Last month, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by another quarter point. While that's bad news for my high-yield savings accounts (which, in turn, reduced their APYs), the potential silver lining would be a dip in mortgage rates. As I've shared before, when we bought our house, we had to accept a rate of 7.999%. So, although we can afford our payments without issue, we've long had the intent to...

Home Buying Tips

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Do You Know Your Neighbors?

by Kyle BurbankSep 17, 2025

A funny thing happened to me as I set off on my way to FinCon last week. As I got into my Uber, the driver said, "We don't know each other, but I actually live right over here." By "right over here," he literally meant two doors down. After making this realization, we chatted a bit about the neighborhood as he drove me to the airport (and, once I arrived,...

Home Buying Tips

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Comparing Our Mortgage to Rental Options

by Kyle BurbankAug 20, 2025

When we decided to buy a house, a huge consideration was how much we'd be spending on a monthly basis. Sure enough, once you factor in our mortgage (complete with 7.999% interest), insurance, and property tax, our monthly payments were an increase from what we were paying for our apartment, coming in at around $1,500. Thankfully, we've been able to manage this increase — but that hasn't stopped me from...

Home Buying Tips

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Why a Pole Pruner is Our New Favorite Outdoor Tool

by Kyle BurbankAug 6, 2025

A few months ago, we called a tree guy out to come take a look in our yard and let us know what work he'd recommend we do. As I recalled in a previous post, this interaction left me with some intriguing insight and didn't cost me anything, as he didn't see a need for us to hire him at the moment. But, among the free knowledge he provided me,...

Home Buying Tips

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Navigating Our First Serious Power Outage

by Kyle BurbankJul 9, 2025

Last weekend, following another brief but powerful windstorm, we were left without power. Although we've had our power go out for a couple of hours here and there since moving to our house, this was the first time that we and a large section of our neighbors were left sans electricity for several hours. And while we were fortunate to have power back after about 15 hours, others in our...

Home Buying Tips

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: The Next Evolution of Our Basement

by Kyle BurbankMay 28, 2025

Since we moved into our house about 18 months ago, it seems as though our relationship with our finished basement continues to evolve. To catch you up, the initial intent for this space was a family room/guest room — but the sofa bed's inability to fit down the stairs scrapped that plan. And while it did eventually get used as a guest bedroom with the help of an air mattress,...

Home Buying Tips

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: The Truth About Managing Risk as a Homeowner

by Kyle BurbankApr 30, 2025

Ever since we first toured the home that we'd go on to make our own, there was something literally looming over the house that worried me a bit: a giant tree in the backyard. Specifically, as I've learned, it's a silver maple tree — and, while it does provide some great shade, watching the branches blow in the wind does lead to some anxiety. That's why, at long last, we...