Ep. 307 – Choosing House Must-Haves: Homebuying 101 – Step 6 

 February 6, 2025

How to Buy a Home | House Must-Haves

 

Buying a home isn’t just about picking out paint colors; it’s about defining your version of home and creating a financial strategy that aligns with your life goals. This episode dives deep into setting personalized goals, both big-picture and actionable, to help you navigate the home-buying journey with confidence. From practical budgeting tips to identifying your house must-haves, we cover it all – plus, maybe even a few celebratory treats!

Quote:

“Home is…we are writing the whole freaking manual together with all of your personal and financial short term, medium term, and long-term goals.”

Highlights:

  • What if your first home purchase could set you up for financial freedom decades down the line?
  • Could understanding your long-term goals influence the type of home you buy now?
  • Is it possible to enjoy the home-buying process and stay on track with your financial plan?
  • What if you could leverage your first home to build wealth and achieve your dreams faster?
  • Could mini-celebrations be the key to staying motivated and sane during the home-buying process?
  • What if talking to a real estate professional could uncover home-buying insights you never considered?
  • Is it possible to buy a home and still enjoy life along the way?

Listen to the podcast here 

 

Choosing House Must-Haves: Homebuying 101 – Step 6

The Importance Of Planning Your First Home Purchase

Welcome back to the step-by-step How to Buy a Home, Ten-Step Starter Program. You are halfway done and truth be told, you already did a lot of the heavy lifting in the first half of these ten steps and that’s for a very good reason. The planning phases, those first five, they get skipped over far too often by would-be first-time home buyers, and all the tools and the education that you gained in steps 1 through 5, that’s going to put you miles ahead in your quest.

Steps 6 through 10 are going to focus on the insider tips for the details of the actual home buying purchase, making sure that you avoid all the tragic missteps so you don’t have to post a hot mess video on social media with one of those gut wrenching horror stories that we hear from other first time home buyers. Second half, let’s go.

What is up, my homies? It’s David Sidoni here, the dorky old dude who decided that his last gig here on earth was going to be. I thought I’d do an episode to reveal all the secrets of the real estate industry because you deserve an advantage, and we’ll start with these step goals. Some of you might be thinking, “Goals. I thought this clown was going to give me the insider industry tip so I don’t get ripped off.”

Okay, Debbie and Donald Downer, hang with me. Let me explain the importance of not 1, but 2 major factors when it comes to the goals. We’ll call them goals 1 and goals 2. Goal 1 gets into the purchase. We are not going to talk about the beds and the baths and the must-have and the like to have list that you are going to create, but we are also going to talk about the goals for buying your first home.

What does it mean for you now or many years down the line? Goal 2 is a simpler one, but something often gets overlooked. We are going to give you some practical tips to help you set the goals in the planning phases that you learned all about. One thing I know after years of doing this, sometimes especially if it’s a long period work in that big three, that could be a grind, it can be stressful, and yes, many times I have seen these planning phases break up full relationships and I unfortunately have to be there and see it with my own two eyes.

Talking when I’m showing them a house. This has happened in a living room, in a garage, in a kitchen, and there was one couple that screamed and cried on the front lawn of a home until one of them called an Uber and left. It sucks but I never get bummed out when I see that happen because this is a big step and it’s better to discover these things early and let me help you avoid a public meltdown like that.

Let’s help you create a plan so you can set small goals in your overall strategy along with little mini-rewards along the way so you don’t feel like you have to feel deprived. After all, these are some of the best years of your life and you should be enjoying this process. When we set clear targeted goals with the little mini-milestone celebration moments on the way to hitting those targets, that makes the journey a heck of a lot less stressful.

The funny thing is, goals one, the big picture of everything. Why are we doing this? That is a big help to goals two, which are figuring out what to do with all your planning goals. Goals 1 helps Goals 2 in an enormous way, and we are not looking for the right page in some one-size-fits-all home buying instruction manual that fits all of your goals.

We are writing the whole freaking manual together with all of your personal and financial short-term, medium term and long-term goals. All those are going to be writing your own personal custom manual. Follow along and write your own goals list for your own personal goals. If you are buying with a partner, there’s a little rule. You have to write these separately. Do not show them to each other, do not discuss them, write them separately, and then call a therapist, set up a Zoom appointment, and only then reveal all of your goals to a neutral third party therapist, and you have to promise that you discuss these things with your inside voices.

How to Buy a Home | House Must-Haves
House Must-Haves: If you are buying with a partner, write your home-buying goals separately. Do not show them to each other and only reveal them to a neutral third-party therapist.

 

How To Prioritize Your Must-Haves And Wants

These goals start simple, and then they get more detailed, and then a little more esoteric. Your first one, it’s a simple one. Figure out what house you want. Bedrooms, baths, square footage size. Do you want a yard? Do you want a garage? All that stuff. Write it all down. Go ahead and write them down with your must-haves and your like to have.

If you select a flooring style or a paint color in your must-haves, stop reading. You are not seeing the big picture. These are easily changeable and should not be a must-have goal. Stop watching HGTV. For the love of God, stop saying shiplap and shabby chic. Your next goal, this one can get interesting because of its location. Everyone says, “With real estate, it’s location.”

Do you want your home to be in a community for you, or you and your family, or is your home selection more of a solitary castle where the structure and the functionality of the home matter way more than your location? This location factor should also include the discussion of remote working, and also if you have an office that you need to go into, the commute times, all those things that you are willing to entertain.

Everyone says real estate is all about location, location, location. But do you want your home to be in a community for you and your family, or is it more of a solitary castle?

Have you, on your own or with your family, discussed 3, 5, and 10-year life plans that could affect the geography? Have you communicated that in deep detail? Could be several different factors, whether it’s a potential promotion, whether it’s wanting to upgrade and move someplace else, or maybe it’s a school district. All these things affect the timeframe that you are going to stay in this first home, and the future thoughts of perhaps moving later on.

The next factor has to do with kids. If you are not having kids, you’ve got things to think about too. What yard do you want for your pets? Something to think about, but if you are someone that’s thinking about having kids, is this the long-term forever home? Is this where you want them to come home to after they leave your nest? Is this going to be a home base for life?

This is where we are also going to talk about extended family. This is one of those you have to make sure that you write out separately for your goals, if you are working with your partner, and you are going to be revealing this to that therapist on Zoom. Here’s a thought for you about extended family. You are going to be looking at your whole financial picture, and if daycare costs are something that might be coming into your whole financial picture, especially if you guys both work, it could be more cost effective to be close to some grandparents, brother, or a sister that might be cheaper than daycare.

I told you guys. These goals, it’s not beds and baths, we are going deep. Back to the actual structure itself. Are you more concerned with the style of the home or do you want a big space? Do you want a neighborhood and less house or more house in maybe a shady part of town or someplace way out in the sticks? What have you thought about new build versus resale?

If you have, and you are writing those down on your goals, make sure you can explain why you like one over the other. Get detailed to truly decide what you need and what’s the best thing for you. You have to understand the pros and cons of both kinds of homes. Another thing to think about is where is that location in regards to other things, like are you buying someplace that has a good walk score?

That’s a thing. On a scale of 1 to 100, it tells you how walkable your home is. If you are close to restaurants, bars, stores, and public transportation. Have you thought about how long you might want that walkableness? How long are you going to be in your young hipster phase? Do you ever see the suburbs in your future?

This could affect your first home purchase and if you’ve studied housing markets, you understand that markets go up and down and you realize that it’s very rarely a good idea to assume it’s going to go up a lot in the next couple years, and then your goal is to buy this house and sell it in 3 or 3 years. 5 to 7 years is a lot safer and 10 years, that’s golden. Unless you are thinking of turning your first home into an investment property. Which leads us to the financial section of the goals one list.

Open your minds here. This is something that I have been getting into the last few years to help set you up for life. How do you see this home financially for you and your family? Is this one going to be your forever home, or do you want to use this as a stepping stone home, using the equity of this home to buy a larger home someday?

Thinking Long-Term: Homeownership And Financial Strategy

Have you considered that since time in the market is the way that you make the most money, it’s the biggest bonus factor that this first home purchase is going to have over any subsequent homes that you buy in the future. Have you thought about the fact that perhaps you could capitalize on the time growth equity that this home will have and maybe keep this home as an investment so you can get maximum returns and set yourself up for a wealthier future?

How to Buy a Home | House Must-Haves
House Must-Haves: You can capitalize on the growth equity of your home and keep it as an investment. This will allow you to get maximum returns and set yourself up for a wealthier future.

 

You do have a very big advantage here and it’s something that not a lot of people are going to explain to you how to do it. Your advantage that you have over everyone else is that you are going through the planning process. You did steps 1 through 5. You are doing much more strategy and planning than most people do. What that means is maybe you don’t have to follow the usual path that people take.

That’s where they buy their first home, they sit in it, and then they trade up to their second home because most people scramble to get into their first home. They don’t understand or get the entire planning process laid out with them with a professional team. They hang out, wait for the appreciation of that profit that comes from the home as it goes up in price, and they use that for the down payment on the next home.

This is the way that most people do it and I understand why they do it, especially if you haven’t dived into the planning process with that first purchase. Here’s some numbers to help you think about this. Did you know the average home several years ago was $150,000? Now it’s at $427,000. Let that number sink in. Here’s something important to know about the last several years. The middle class has been getting squeezed out over the last couple of decades, and in this new 2025 world, look around and see how much trouble average people are having setting themselves up for retirement.

Lots of people work a lot longer than they thought they would. That’s because of the old simple plan of letting social security and your pensions be your safety net. That whole thing is wildly in flux, but real estate that can secure your future. You could protect yourself from that wage gap disparity, which doesn’t look like it’s going away. Not to mention inflation popping in and out, and you could protect yourself by using all the things we learned in steps 1 through 5.

You are a renter. You know that being a landlord is lucrative. Let me toss this concept out to you. It’s a financial goal that could be a big part of your first purchase. Buy your home, enjoy it for 3, 4, or 5 months and then call back the unicorn team that you’ve done all this planning with and say, “We are settled in.” Talking to the realtor and the lender. “We’d like to start some simple planning for two future options because this is not our forever home.” Can we work two plans for the big three? Remember guys, we went over this. The more time that you put into the big three, the better your results. Starting then, even if you are 5, 7, or 10 years away, it’s going to show massive results.

Your credit score should already be rocking anyway. Asking for two plans, plan A is selling this home and using the equity to buy the move up home in 5, 7, or 10 years like most people do or plan B, let’s work the big 3 to keep this home, and then you tell us along the way with our new credit scores, our new savings and our new debt. While we own this home, how much do we qualify for to buy another home using your savings that you are going to be saving over the next several years?

You already know how to do this and since you are in no rush, you can adjust the plans along the way. It doesn’t mean that you have to do it. You can start plan B, and if things go crazy, you jump to plan A. You are in, you’ve got the knowledge. Take advantage. It’s the most stable wealth option in the country. It’s real estate, the one that’s made more billionaires than anything else. It’s not the stock market, it’s real estate.

For you, this can be a very simple plan to utilize your knowledge to keep one appreciating asset at a very early time that you purchase, that’ll set your family up for life. Imagine you are keeping this home that you are going to buy forever. You could cash out in 2025 or many years, getting those numbers like I talked about before. $150,000 to $427,000, it’s pretty good cash out. Have you factored in the fact that when you are buying this home, for most of you, you are young and you are probably going to make more money as you progress in your life.

Maybe for the first year, I don’t know, you only save a hundred bucks a month, but think of it. In 5 or 10 years, you are still going to be paying the fixed monthly payment of your mortgage, which, who knows, maybe you refinance down to an even lower payment or you got rid of the PMI and it’s even lower. Now you are making more money each month to have more money to save. Let me give you some math to show you what.

Wherever you are, what was your salary and your rent a few years ago? Got those numbers. Now what if you were paying that rent now, but with your current salary now. Do you see how that gap gets wider? For you, factor in the fact that your upcoming salary increases in the next 5 to 10 years. They are probably going to be more than you’ve gotten the last several years, and that gap gets wider and wider with more savings that you can put into your plan B because you are sitting there with your fixed payment.

The Importance Of Financial Planning And Budgeting

You might decide in 5, 7, 10 years that who knows? Maybe you decide you want to cash out. You want to get all your equity, sell your home, and add that to your savings that you’ve been working on, and now you can go buy your McMansion somewhere, the forever home that you want to keep. I get that. That could be a plan, but if you do plan A and sit tight and don’t do anything, then you don’t have the option. If you do plan B in 5, 7, or 10 years, you have options. What’s the worst thing going to happen there? Now you decide to sell the home with your equity and you still have a big fat wad of cash. Spreadsheet nerds, do this. Make a twenty-year budget. Increase your salary by whatever you think it will be. That 3% a year should be your minimum.

Create that new number annually as your money in, and then subtract your money out with a new mortgage payment along with your other bills. Your total leftover monthly that you are going to see is you are going to take the annual and divide it by twelve. As you progress, you might begin to incur more expenses too. I understand that, especially if you are thinking about having kids. You are not taking 100% of that widening gap between how much money you get in and how much money you have to pay out. Take 50% of that surplus and put that into a plan B savings account. You can do that on your spreadsheet nerds. I know you know how to do it. Once you’ve got those numbers tabulated in there, how much money are you going to have saved in 5, 7, or 10 years, even taking 50% of your excess and putting it into a savings account.

For your next home, you could do plan A and be set for life, or you can look at plan B, realizing you can keep the home and you’ve got that money sitting in the savings account that you can use for another low down payment purchase because you already know how to do that. There are tons of other math that makes this strategy financially tasty.

For instance, the fixed payment that you have on this first purchase you make, in 5, 7, and 10 years, if you decide to keep the home at that point, you are going to be able to rent it out for a lot more than the fixed payment you had because that fixed payment’s got years on it and rents have been going up. Now you get to factor in a positive monthly cashflow from that rental into your new budget.

It sounds like something you could toss into your new down payment savings account, and that’s going to increase as rents go up and it stays fixed. Secondly, you are going to get some fatty write-offs when you own a rental property. There’s this thing called depreciation. Modern wonder and a great way to make money.

I could, but I don’t teach investment buying of homes because that’s a whole different level of real estate, and the people who do teach the get rich quick investment strategies, they are a dime a dozen, and even the good ones are all selling something, which always makes me laugh. If you are making so much money investing in real estate, why are you selling this to everyone else? That’s another story. My mission here is to help every man find a way to get the security of home ownership in the new 21st century economy. That future retirement is not looking pretty.

This is simply phase two of my every man’s playbook for the rent replacement strategy. Your first rent replacement strategy is buying that home. This could be phase two, and if you are wondering, “This is interesting. Why haven’t I heard anybody else talk about this? I hear people talking about real estate investing all the time. This must be crazy.” No. It’s because nobody can make any money off of it. That’s the only reason no one tells you about this. There’s nothing to sell. Think about it. If you do plan B, you cut the future earnings, the future potential sales for your unicorn team in half.

Instead of five years from now, you are calling them up and saying, “Let’s sell this house and buy another. That’s two deals.” No. Now you are going to call them and ask them to do one. They only get paid for one purchase. There are no realtors and investment gurus out there teaching this. It’s pretty scary. In the past couple of years, I have talked a lot about there being some high-minded economists who are seeing, especially in North America, that things are moving towards a rental economy.

It’s happening in other parts of the world, but it’s starting to happen here. If you want to be wealthy or if you want to be secure with your finances, let’s follow what all the shady big Wall Street firms are doing. They have been buying residential real estate and renting it. I’m not saying you need to do this with fifteen properties, but if you do this with your first one, keep that. You are going to have such a bigger windfall later on in life.

Summarizing that goal is your purchase of a forever home. If so, forget everything I said, or is it a stepping stone? If it is a stepping stone, reach back out to your unicorn 3, 4, or 5 months after you move in and start planning A and B. Quick side note here. Plan B, it’s always a good idea since housing markets are fickle and can fluctuate. Your equity, it’s not on a direct straight up path.

Nobody can predict what’s going to happen with our economy. Saving is always good. You can prepare for a potential decrease in your home’s equity someday. Remember, housing markets go up and down. Using this plan A and plan B thought process, now dig deeper in how you see this home psychologically. When you are looking at it that way. Maybe you are willing to make some more compromises with that first home, understanding that’s going to be a long-term rental.

Keeping a good amount of savings is always good. You can prepare for a potential decrease in your home’s equity someday

While you are digging into your brain and seeing how you see this purchase, let’s go deeper. Are you the first one in your family to buy a home? Do you have preconceived notions about this? Maybe buying a home for you that feels like the ultimate win and you are done. Know thyself people. Be sure to understand that you can branch out, you can do more.

Keep the long game in mind and don’t sell yourself short. Buying a home, it might feel like it’s the top of the ladder to gain stability. It’s the beginning. The home excuse the cheesy home buying pun is your foundation. It sets you up for a whole life you never thought was possible. You don’t know what you don’t know, and we are going to keep learning, evolving and flexing. Not flexing like flexing, but flexing like being flexible because we never know how things are going to change.

Here’s another psychological question to help you form your real goals. What type of home did you grow up in? Have you explored homes like that? Are you trying to recreate your childhood? It’s cool if you are, but think about it. Maybe you need a stepping stone to get to that home, or on the flip side, are you trying to do exactly the opposite of your crummy childhood, trying to get everything different in your first home purchase because you hated the way that you grew up?

Be sure that you keep an open mind too because you never know. Maybe buying a home like the one you grew up in, where you didn’t have the best time, maybe that’s a good option for you. Maybe that fits with your rent replacement strategy. It could be your way into the market and you could use that as a stepping stone to do something else.

Not to mention, who knows, it could be good therapy to own that home and do it right this time. Now you are wondering, “My goal list looks like a crazy ass therapy journal.” That’s fine. That’s good because buying a home is going to be emotional. It’s an emotional place, and the more that you think about it with your emotions as well as a long-term mindset, both for your quality of life and your long-term financial position, well then the better choices and the options that you are going to consider when you go out home shopping.

Think first, set your goals, and act second. Do not buy into the HGTV surface level thinking. Go deeper. Now, the last one for the goals one, these are the goals that are around what the purchase means for you and what you are looking to get. I could go way deeper into all the financial goals, but let me summarize it with this. Take your realtor and lender to lunch. The end.

I swear you could spend all day Googling and researching what other people say, but you have an asset right there. Pick their brain. They got to eat. It’s not like you are asking them to set another meeting for you. If you pay for lunch, I am sure their assets are going to show up. You will never learn more about the options in home buying than you will in that one hour at lunch with a professional who not only is excited to be your advocate but is getting free food.

The last part was a little bit of a dig, but seriously, you are going to learn a lot. You can ask them not about your own personal situation, but ask them everything they have seen. You have all your goals set in your head, but the one thing that you don’t have is hindsight. They do. They have tons of stories, both good and bad. They have got major nuggets of wisdom.

Take them to lunch, pick their brain, bring that goal list, but realize it’s not to go over everything on a list with them. It’s to add goals on that list that maybe you never even thought about, and that all comes from their stories and their wisdom. You have the beautiful luxury of a real unicorn real estate support team. People who are your advocates.

That’s the difference between the nonunicorn people trying to show you something exciting and sell you the HGTV buzz topics, so you get emotionally invested and that helps them make their sale. This is something different. Get a full support team. Now that your homework list is done on your goals, here’s the most important thing to know about all your goals that you wrote down. Be ready to compromise.

You will cut, compromise, and change many things from your like-to-have list and possibly even on your must-have list. Once you factor in everything from the goals list that we went through, things are going to change. Be ready to compromise. You will compromise. It’s the C word of buying your first home. Be ready. The first home dream home days, unfortunately, are behind us. That’s why you need clear goals, and they are going to change and adjust and adapt as you get further and further into the process.

The first dream home days are behind us. You need clear goals, but they will change as you go. Learn to adjust and adapt as you get further into the process.

One final PS on the goals one section. Yes, I highly encourage you to save with your budget. Do not overextend, but since the guidelines and lending have changed, I’m hearing something more and more like since 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011, 90% of my first time home buyers because they are young and perhaps afraid or want to make sure that they are not getting in over their head or they don’t want to be house poor, they end up calling me in 5e years. It happens all the time. As I said 90% of the time.

They say, “We are outgrowing this place too quickly. I don’t know. Maybe we should have stretched a little bit more the first time now that we are in this home.” The payments seem easier now, because we are young and we both got increases in our salary. Not to mention we learned how to work our credit and our debt and our savings. I know that everybody tells you to buy less than you are approved for.

Since 2008, getting approved for a loan is so stringent. The lenders and the banks are so conservative that in reality, most of you are going to be able to afford far more than your approved payment that you get with your loan approval in a couple of years if life goes as it normally does. Don’t go crazy and use that as some excuse to go nuts and stretch and not have any savings and reserves, but do keep that in mind. Smart conservative people do end up calling me a few years later and saying, “We should have stretched.”

Hopefully, this goal 1 has opened your eyes a little bit to thinking about more than the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the yards, the garage, and all the must-haves and like-to-haves on your goal sheet. Remember, we listen to a few very intelligent folks, some doctors and other smart people who figured out that they over researched a lot of what they needed to do, and they should have asked some pros for their insights and ideas. Now we are going to take something else. We are going to learn from those doctors and Smarty pants on the interviews, and we are also going to add it to our goal sheet and use the wonderful hindsight of our realtors with all the things that they have seen people do. Write your list, set your goals, take your unicorns to lunch and ask them to share everything they know.

We get to the second part of this episode. This is goal 2. This one is a lot easier. The hardest part of setting goals during your planning process. Now that we have got everything laid out for us, it’s not going to be what to do or how to do it. That’s easy. That’s all there and the last lease ever, Episode 251. You talk with your realtor and your lender, you get your credit score target goal number, and then you get your debt reduction goal number, and then you get your savings target goal number, and then you calendar it out. That’s easy, especially for your spreadsheet nerds.

Celebrating Small Victories In The Home Buying Process

Sticking to the goals, that’s where it can get hard. Goal 2 is my own personal mandatory non-negotiable final step when you’ve got your target numbers for your last lease ever. I mentioned it before, we are going to set mini-celebrations along the way. When you are working the last lease ever, when your credit score goes up, 25 points, go out to ice cream.

How to Buy a Home | House Must-Haves
House Must-Haves: Home buying means setting many celebrations along the way. Do something special whenever you accomplish something big.

 

Have a binge fest movie night at home, or a full TV series like me and my wife do. That’s crazy. We stay up way too late, and then you can order food in. That’s for you, or when you pay off one of your credit cards, or you hit a great goal working on your debt. Go ahead and have a night in and order food in and maybe even have somebody deliver it to you. Give a reward. Binge movies and TV shows all night.

Here’s a tricky little one, I can’t remember if it was me or a homie that came up with this, but I love this one. You know the 30% line that we are shooting for to get your credit card underneath that, that’s where you start getting extremely positive results on your credit score? Even if you are snowballing on all your credit cards or you have this major intense program, under 30% is a great place to go out and have a little mini-celebration.

It’s a great target. Do this. Set that target number for when it gets to 25%. Once you hit 25% of usage, now go out and celebrate, but spend 3% on the credit card. Now you are still under 30%. How about that one? Finally, when you are setting your savings goals, make sure you put in these extra moments. If you decide, once you’ve got all your numbers, that $25,000 is your target.

Know yourself. Are you the type of person that needs a celebration when you’ve saved $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 and $20,000? Do you need multiple celebrations before you hit the $25,000 celebration? Are you the person that can have one big blowout celebration at the end? If you need little ones, here’s how you do it. Incremental celebrations. Your first savings goal is $5,000. Make it $5,050 and now go out and blow $50 on yourself.

That would mean your second goal is $10,100. That’s $100 to celebrate. Your third goal is $15,200, $200. Big night out. Your 4th goal is $20,200. Stop it. I see you. $200 is your max. If you or you and your partner can’t feel some reward blowing $200 one night, then good luck when you see how many compromises you are going to have to make when you are trying to buy a home up against all kinds of other buyers and cash buyers, especially if you are coming in with a $25,000 down payment.

It’s stressful. You are going to need these small victories. I’m a firm believer in them. Celebrate. This is going to suck otherwise. Does it make sense to go out and spend money on ice cream or a night out when you are trying to save money? People look at me and go, “That doesn’t make any sense.” I say it does. You know why? It’s because your mental health is important.

I wasn’t joking when I said how stressful buying a home is. There was one list I saw. Top three. It was the death of a loved one, divorce, and third buying a home. Remember, you got a whole bunch of spreadsheets and things that you are working here, but this is also a mental balancing act and celebrating the small victories that’s going to keep your mental health in a better spot. That’s why we start with decide.

We are tackling the first mental hurdle with that. If you are still thinking about when is the best time to buy, that’s because you haven’t decided, because the answer was yesterday, and why was it yesterday? “It’s because of my friend math.” I have got five years of shows with forecasts and predictions on record, and it’s telling you that with low inventory, this is still the best time to do it yesterday.

That means you’ve got a little motivation behind your journey. While you are doing it, reward yourself along the way. That’ll keep you inspired. Living your best life means living in your moment along the journey and keeping a positive spirit. Don’t be bummed out that you’ve got to do all these things. Don’t be thinking about sacrifices. Be excited that you are planning and that you are not floating aimlessly like a rudderless boat in the lake of life. It’s more like the ocean of renting.

I have even gotten some little short attention span bursts of information and motivation. That’s my Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube shorts. They have got tons of 30-second stuff. You could jump on my feed and scroll for five minutes and get the boost you need. I have been doing this a long time. There’s a lot out there. People come in and out and we are trying to help as many people as we can. While you are there, subscribe like it.

If you are new, you can write a review to help spread the word. Don’t forget to check out the YouTube channel. There are a lot of tips on how to buy a home, YouTube as well. If you are reading this and you got your goal sheet down, you want to kickstart your planning or ask me a specific question. It’s all there at How to Buy a Home.

Final thought on goals. As humans, when we reach for a big achievement, our individual burning desire to want that achievement, that’s not what gets you there, and that’s coming from me. Captain Motivation and Inspiration wins every episode saying, “You can do this.” I can’t remember when I heard it but this is insightful.

Every athlete starts their season wanting to win the championship. They all have that motivation and that burning desire every single one of them, but those who have the discipline, the structure, the planning, and the work ethic, those are the athletes that get the ring. The best way to stay structured and to have goals is to have those little rewards along the way to keep your motivation thriving and sometimes even rejuvenated in your journey when you need it. Things go up and down. Life’s going to suck a few times while you are trying to plan to buy a home. It will, but if you’ve got your goals in place, something you can tangibly look at, and if you are working on your plans, and if you are rewarding yourself along the way, you can do this.

 

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This podcast was started for YOU, to demystify things for first time home buyers, and help crush the confusion. After helping first timers for over 13 years, I knew there wasn’t t a lot of clear, tangible, useable information out there on the internet, so I started this podcast. Help me spread the word to other people just like you, dying for answers. Tell your friends, family, and perhaps that random neighbor you REALLY want to move out about How to Buy a Home! A really easy way is to hit the share button and text it to your friends. Go for it, help someone out. And if you’re not already a regular listener, subscribe and get constant updates on the market. If you are a regular and learned something, help me help others – give the show a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, or write a review on Spotify. Let’s change the way the real estate industry treats you first time buyers, one buyer at a time, starting with you – and make sure your favorite people don’t get screwed by going into this HUGE step blind and confused. Viva la Unicorn Revolution!

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You Might Also Be Interested In:

Ep. 314 – Is Real Estate a Good Investment? – Dave Meyer, Bigger Pockets Interview
Ep. 309 – Stop Fearing Your Future Mortgage – Homebuying 101 – Step 9
Ep. 308 – DIY Education & Online Research: Homebuying 101 – Step 7 & 8
Ep. 306 – Saving To Buy Your Home: Homebuying 101 – Step 5