Category: Homes
Homes
Homes
Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: No, You Don't Want a 50-Year Mortgage
If you're like me, one of the most frightening parts of buying a house is just the idea that you'll be paying it off over the course of three whole decades! Now there's talk of creating a new option that goes beyond the 30-year mortgage: a 50-year mortgage. On the surface, the upsides to such a plan are obvious — but unfortunately, so are the sizeable downsides. So, should you want...
Homes
Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: The 5 Scariest Things We've Experienced as Homeowners (So Far)
This week is Halloween! It will actually be our second as homeowners and, if last year is anything to go by, we can expect at least a handful of trick-or-treaters (after having none at our apartment). But that's not really what I wanted to talk about. Instead, I thought I'd take this thematic opportunity to discuss some of the scary things — in all senses of the term — we've...
Homes
Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Two Years Since
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...
Homes
Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Can I Refinance Yet?
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...
Homes
Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Do You Know Your Neighbors?
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,...
Homes
Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Adding Security Cameras to Our House
When we moved into our house, one of our first annoyances were multiple visits from ADP representatives trying to sell us a security system. At the time, and with each of their three or four visits, I told them that we weren't very concerned and that such a system wasn't really a priority for us. That remains true for the most part... however, following a small incident over the summer,...
Homes
