Fulfillment of the American dream – buying a house in the United States. Personal experience.
– For a rented one-room apartment in the center of Houston, I paid $ 1,150 per month. For five years, a decent amount has come up – $ 70 thousand. Then I decided that it makes no sense to pay that kind of money to strangers, and I got the idea to buy my own house. I note right away that in the United States there is no practice of self-purchasing housing, as a rule, people turn to agencies. Agencies charge approximately 6% of the transaction for their services. This amount is divided among the realtors involved in the transaction. All costs are borne by the seller.
One of the main criteria for me was the area. It is important to understand the fine line here: the cost of two identical houses located just across the street from each other can vary greatly. And this is not accidental – a great influence in America is given to the school. If you bought a house in an area attached to a particular school, then you will not have the opportunity to send your children to another. Therefore, real estate belonging to a good school is obviously more expensive. Although there are tricks everywhere, for example, my friends have a one-room apartment in a good school district, they rent it for $ 2.5 thousand a month, and they themselves rent a spacious house for the same price in a bad school district. However, their daughter is registered in the apartment, so she goes to a good school.
The second point is the location of the region. I work in the center of Houston, and I didn’t want to spend 40-45 minutes on the road to work every day. Therefore, I looked at options only in the central areas of the city. Although the cost of houses in the central and outlying areas also varies greatly. So in the end I settled on a 4-story townhouse. By the way, for the same money on the periphery, I could take a cool mansion with a swimming pool and a spacious attic.
My house cost me $300,000. In order to better navigate the issue of price and quality, I will tell you what it is. It has four air-conditioned floors. On the ground floor there is a garage, a bedroom, a wardrobe, as well as a bathroom and a toilet room. On the second floor there is a dining room, a kitchen, a living room and a bathroom. On the third floor there are two bedrooms, each with its own shower and toilet. The fourth floor is reserved for an attic and a terrace, where my friends and I relax and have a barbecue.
And now more about buying a house. The most important thing in the USA is credit history. If you do not have a bag of money, then you simply cannot survive without a good credit history. Americans often joke about this topic, they say, girls do not look at the Bentley you arrived in, but at their credit history. If it is bad, then one simple conclusion suggests itself – you will not drive this car for long … In honor of this, I strongly advise everyone who moves to America to get a credit card immediately upon arrival. Let it be trifles, but you need to score points, constantly pay with it, and develop a positive story. Because a lot depends on it.
Now Houston is actively developing. Back in 2004, some areas near the center were abandoned, reminiscent of a real ghetto. Today they are built up with elite houses, good schools have been opened, and the prestige of these places has greatly increased. Last year I bought a house two weeks after posting the ad.
When the agent finds the house, a representative of the bank leaves for the object. He inspects the property and draws his conclusions. It often happens that a house, for example, is offered for $250,000, and a bank representative, after analyzing it, says that it is not worth more than $220,000.
Accordingly, the bank will not give more than $ 220 thousand. And no persuasion will work here. The only thing you can do is contact the seller. If he agrees to lower the cost – well, if not – then the missing $ 30 thousand will have to be paid out of his own pocket.
By the way, you can also hire your own expert, who will check the quality of the object before buying a property. At the end of his work, he will provide you with a complete analysis of the housing, take photographs, and give you the necessary recommendations and advice. However, this service is not cheap, such a check costs $ 500. It is not at all necessary to do this, but experience shows that it is better to find out about all the “pitfalls” before buying a home. My brother once found two good options, he liked both houses and he expected that after an examination he would buy the best of them. In reality, everything turned out differently – in the end, he did not buy the house, but spent $ 1,000 on the services of an expert. the second is a bad foundation.
Today, paying off a loan costs me $2,000 a month. This is certainly more expensive than the cost of renting an apartment in which I lived before, but the conditions are completely different. Moreover, this is an investment in your own property. By the way, there are also various options. I can rent my house for $2.5-3 thousand a month, rent an apartment for $1.5 thousand, which means I can live in peace and pay off the loan by renting my apartment.
However, it is worth noting that the cost of monthly payments also includes property tax. It is calculated based on the appraised value of the home. In order to reduce these figures, I turned to a law firm that deals with the issue of tax minimization. To reduce the tax, you must prove in court that the house is cheaper. This service costs 40% of the money saved. It will be much more expensive to build a house on a bare plot than to buy an already built property.
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Buying a house in the United States is a process that involves many steps. You will need to do research on the market, find an agent, get pre-approved for a mortgage, find the right home and then close the deal.
The first step in buying a house is getting pre-approved for a mortgage. This means that you are approved to borrow up to a certain amount of money from your bank or lender before you start looking for houses. This will make it easier to buy any home that you want because lenders won’t be able to turn you down based on your income or credit score.