Ep. 45 – Listener Interview – How She Bought Her First Home With Little Down And Now Pays LESS Than Her Rent! 

Are you sick of renting and living at the mercy of landlords? Here is a testimonial from a real-life listener who used the podcast to plan for and buy her first home. She needed a year to plan, and thanks to getting the guidance she needed, she now owns a home and her monthly payment is less than her old rent…and no more landlords! Hear how she, her husband, and her cats used the guidance of David Sidoni, the How to Buy a Home guy, to find a caring and experienced Realtor in her area that gave her fantastic service, almost a full year before they closed on their first home. And yes, it’s bigger than their old rental by a LOT!

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Listener Interview – How She Bought Her First Home With Little Down And Now Pays LESS Than Her Rent!

Real Life Story From A Listener Who Used This Podcast To Buy With Less Than $10,000, And Now Pays Less Than Her Old Rent.

My guest is one listener who was sick of renting and living at the mercy of the landlord, but she didn’t know much about the process of buying her first home and had no clue where to start. Sound familiar? The story goes like this. This 25-year-old listener found the show, reached out to me, got local unicorn realtor and lender guides who gave her a plan to follow step-by-step. They helped educate her, fixed some credit issues, showed her the real possibilities in our numbers, and finally helped her and her husband purchase a home with only 3.5% down payment and a monthly payment less than their rent. Let’s get right to her story.  

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This is super exciting. I told you a little bit about Lenora, but now we’re going to have an actual talk. I’m going to find out more about her. Why don’t you introduce yourself to everyone?  

My name is Lenora, I’m 25 and married. Me and my husband bought a house in 2020.  

One of the things that those of you out there who were thinking, “She’s 25 and bought a house. There’s no way I’m going to be able to do that.” Sometimes it takes a little work. Leanora, I went back and found our emails. Do you know that we talked first, November 4th, 2019?  

[bctt tweet=”The situation where when you’re renting somewhere, you’re at the mercy of the person who owns it. ” via=”no”]

Yes. It is almost a full year before we bought the house.  

It was a lot of planning and figuring out what we were going to do. Tell us how did you find us? How did you find me? How did you find the show? Just like a little search? 

Honestly, I was just thinking a lot about buying a house but I was like, “It’s probably impossible. I can’t do it.” I was on Spotify and I think I typed in “House or home buying,” and a few podcasts popped up and yours popped up and I was like, “What’s this?” I clicked on it.  

What led you to thinking, at the time you’re 24 years old, maybe even 23 going, “I should buy a house?” Were there any specific things in your life that made you think about it?  

I’m tired of renting, honestly, and of the situation where when you’re renting somewhere. You’re at the mercy of the person who owns it. You can’t change much yourself. We wanted to get more cats, but we can only have two cats based on the rules that the place. There are a lot of different rules there. It wasn’t the best situation, honestly, the renting location but it was the best we could afford with renting. It would be so much better if we could just have the house and be done with this. I was done with renting. I didn’t want to do it anymore.  

I love the fact that your big motivation, your big thrust was more cats.  

We have three now.  

I thought you were going to say, “We have 46 now. We love it.”  

No, not yet. Maybe one day.  

We started talking early and we did it in a year. What were some of the obstacles that you had to overcome to get from someone who was thinking, “I want more cats and I don’t want to rent anymore,” to someone who was seriously starting to look at houses? 

I would say the biggest thing that made it more possible is talking with you and talking with Dino, who you connected us with, about making an actual game plan because at the beginning, it seemed completely impossible. We weren’t sure. The biggest obstacle is probably the credit issue because, between me and my husband, one of us had good credit. One of us did not, and of course, they only look at the bad one. That was the biggest obstacle, we’re trying to fix that and work it up. Throughout that year, we were able to slowly build it, fix it and go through all the issues with it. That was the biggest issue and it remained the biggest issue the whole time through.  

For those of you who don’t know, Dino’s a mortgage broker. Lenora’s in Southern California, but not exactly in my part of Southern California. I did end up referring her to her unicorn, but the lenders, the mortgage broker, he was local. As I’ve talked to you guys about before, sometimes people are thinking that the lenders and the realtors aren’t going to talk to you until you’re 30 or 60 days away from buying, and Lenora, what you’re saying is that the roadmap was crucial for you.  

Before we even had any concept of getting a house, they were talking with us and we could call whenever we need to and ask questions. Another question will pop that up, “What are we supposed to do about this?” They’re helping us the entire way.  

It was a combination between them checking in with you, but then you guys going, “We hit a little bump in the road and being able to have a customer service guide, ready to help you.”  

I was calling them all the time.  

They never hung up on you and said, “Stop calling us, lady?”  

No, they didn’t. It was always like, “It’s good to hear from you. What’s going on?” 

You did bring up an interesting point. I want to touch on it before we move on, credit is not an average. Credit is if two people are buying a house, you work on the lowest score.  

That was honestly the biggest shock because we were hoping, we were like, “This credit’s good. It should be okay because they should look at this credit.” Also, the person who had the better credit was the one who was going to be making the mortgage payments. You thought, “That should be fine,” but no. They looked at the lower one no matter what. It would have been nice if it was the average, but no average.  

I’m going to take a second to break it down for those of you who are reading this because you’re excited about this. Here’s the way it works for those out there. When two people are purchasing, one person might be making the payment, but maybe you need two people’s income. The two people’s income, it doesn’t matter how you guys split up your bills and who pays what in the house but if one person has an income of $50,000 and the other person has an income of $40,000, you might need to combine the income of $90,000 to get approved for the price that you want to buy. You then have to take both people.  

What’s weird about it is the credit scores, if there are two people applying the better person, you don’t even exist. They just use the lower person’s score. Where it gets confusing is as an individual, when they’re trying to figure out what your credit score is, you have three different scores. In that case, they take the middle score. You’re like, “You take the middle score when it’s me when I’m by myself with three credit bureaus. When I bring somebody else on, the top person doesn’t count. We take the bottom person and they look at their three scores.” Do you have any tricks, anything that you guys did? Readers are always are asking about credit. What did you guys have to do?  

Probably the number one thing that helped that you recommended was putting them on my credit card. What is it called?  

It’s called an authorized user. It’s magic.  

That was probably the biggest helping boost, but then it was doing credit digging and getting credit help. Dino sent us to a credit agency that would help us out. It wasn’t too expensive, it was a couple of $100 to start. It was $25 a month. They would just go through, help you figure out what’s wrong. They would go and try to get the bad things and get rid of them. That helped out a little bit too, but the authorized user was the biggest help.  

If you want the history about the authorized user that’s episode 3 and episode 8. What it is, your history is a big part of your credit pie. Your credit score, if you look at it as a pie chart, there’s how much credit do you have. There’s the negative stuff. There’s, how long have you had credit? The credit history is really important and if one person has a longer history, all you have to do is put them on the card, we’ll go back and listen to authorize user. All I can tell you is every time I talked to a lender or a credit person, they tell me that an authorized user is the biggest magic trick to help people go from wishing about a home for more of those cats, and being in a position to buy a home. That is so great to hear. It was initial information for me, but then you dug deeper. You had that guide working you along the way. We don’t want to get crazy into your financials and stuff, but how was the difference between renting and paying a mortgage? Did you guys have a big stretch difference or is it relatively close?  

We are paying less than we would have been paying right now if we were still renting. Our rent has gone up a little bit because our year would have been up. When we were looking for a house, we got our little paper that was like, “Your rent’s about to increase. Choose one of these options.” All three of those options would have been more than we’re paying now.  

I’m going to be sarcastic, and that’s only because you guys put what, 50% or 75% down? You had a huge down payment. What was your down payment?  

It’s 3.5%.  

[bctt tweet=”The American dream is changing a lot. ” via=”no”]

We’re in California. How much of a home did you guys purchase? What was your price?  

Our biggest battle is trying to decide if we wanted a house or a condo and what worked best for us. For our house, we were looking around $80,000 to $90,000 but honestly, we were looking at the pros and cons of having the condo. It works better for us in the condo situation. For that, it was $210,000.  

It’s a $210,000 house for 3.5% down. The math on that, we’re looking at under $10,000 with the closing costs and everything, and significantly less, actually. It was probably $8,500 with closing and everything. Were you guys living in a mansion? Was your rent super huge or was your place where you were renting before similar to the condo that you have now?  

What we were renting was tiny. It’s maybe a third or less of what we have now. It’s so small.  

You more than doubled the place that you live in for only $10,000 down or a little less even, and your full payment is less than what you’re renting. We can stop the show right there. Everybody needs to read that. The reason for that is because of what I’ve talked about so many times, it’s the low mortgage interest rates. It’s understanding that you don’t have to go out and buy your dream house right away. What were the things that you thought might’ve been in your way that you realized was not as big an obstacle once you started on that path? Doing your research and then having the guide with the mortgage broker who was going to walk you a year out, what were the things that the obstacles that you feel like you got past that you didn’t think you could on your own?  

The credit issue was the definite biggest situation, but another one was asking for help. I’m very much not good at that, but we needed help with the down payment. I remember one of your episodes was talking about during Thanksgiving. “When you go over, just ask your parents for help, do it. They want to help you,” and they did. It was really hard and it took me a long time to even ask because I don’t like asking for things at all. I was like, “No, I can do it,” then we’re like, “No, we need to ask for help.” Asking that question, that took a lot but once I did, she was like, “How much do you need?”  

That’s one of my favorite episodes, and it’s funny when I did it, The Secret, Easiest Down Payment Assistance Program Ever – Thanksgiving Special. It was around Thanksgiving. The joke of the episode was, “The secret is, go ask your mom, go ask your dad, your uncle.” I hope that’s inspiring to other readers out there. Since I’ve recorded that episode, I’ve continued talking to you, but I’ve talked to other people that are these really strong, independent people. The cool thing about it is they do tend to be the people to seek things out. They do find the show.  

There is a difference when you approach your parents or whoever it is and say, “I want to buy a house, give me money,” as opposed to, “I’ve been researching. I discovered A, B, C and D, and because of that, I think it’s financially far more prudent for me to be a homeowner than a renter. I’m looking at the low–interest rates. I’m realizing that this is a difficult conversation for me, mom and dad, you know me, but if I waited 3 or 4 years, I’m just throwing money away. Do you guys see it the same way?” That’s the very business–style version. For someone who’s strong and independent like you, is that how you approached it?  

It was. I danced around it for a long time when I was first telling my parents that we were thinking about it. She brought up the down payment and then she asked, “Do you have enough?” I was going to say, “Yes, we’re fine,” but she said that for the first time, I was like, “No. If you can, we do need a little bit of help.” She was like, “Okay,” so asking for help.  

That’s a very exciting piece of it. What other parts of the process surprised you? Obviously, you didn’t know anything about it, but was there anything that you’re like, “This is something that I don’t think anybody thinks about?” 

I would say one thing was how much price can change in location. First, we know that everyone always talks about California, it’s so expensive, but if you will go over here, it’s a lot cheaper but just going to different areas in California and seeing the different prices for the same amount of property is like, “Are you serious?” That was a big one. For a while, we were looking around your area because we wanted to stay close to where we were, but it wasn’t happening for us. We’re in Inland Empire, so we started looking around here. It was completely different for a lot more property than we would have been able to get over there.  

It’s just a few miles this way changes the price. It was ridiculous. We had to weigh like, “Is it better to rent or buy something that is this much square feet in property and be able to drive ten minutes to work, or is it better to be a little bit farther away and the drive to work is a little bit longer, but you’re getting all this more? You’re getting all this more house. You don’t have to rent anymore.” It was trying to figure that out too. We haven’t had to drive, of course, work from home. I’d rather do the drive than what we were doing before.  

How serendipitous that you guys ended up deciding to add the commute and get the bigger space and then guess what? Now you’re slapped in that bigger space, whether you like it or not.  

I’m working from home this whole time.  

You listen to podcasts, so you can always educate yourself on the next thing you’re going to do in your life when you’re driving to work someday.  

I used to have a long drive East to drive from where I was living to Downtown LA and then to Hollywood where I was working. I’m used to a long drive, get a podcast, get a long music playlist and go. It’s not that bad.  

It is really interesting. There are people who think, “Houses in my area costs X.” It can change from neighborhood to neighborhood-based on random things. The neighborhood that I grew up in was built in the 1950s and the neighborhood that I live in now is only about twenty miles away but the 1950s homes cost the same as the home built in 2000 that I live in now. That neighborhood that I first moved in, it’s a little closer to Los Angeles and it has a killer school district. You’re like, “I’m buying a house. It’s 50 years older and it costs the same price for the same square footage.” You never know. This is such an inspiring story and I could seriously chat with you forever. We did chat for over a year. Have you even thought about the future, or what this house is going to do for you? Especially in the pandemic, are you just sitting in the house and enjoying where you are at? 

[bctt tweet=”Start with a unicorn realtor, then get a trusted mortgage broker. ” via=”no”]

We’ve been thinking about the future, everything. We’re looking around, seeing what needs to be upgraded. We found a few things. We need to fix this or that also the main ones, probably the stairwell, the little space between the stairs is too big. When we eventually have kids, we’re going to need a smaller one. We’re looking at things we want to upgrade, but it’s just the area around here. Especially, we were stuck here when we first moved in because we could see the area and how things are. It’s safe up here. It’s nice, the neighbors are nice for the most part. The community is nice. There’s a school across the street. I could walk to the elementary school. We’ve been thinking about the future and here, you could do a lot of time.  

One of the things I tell people all the time is the American dream, it’s changing a lot. Originally, it’s the house with the picket fence. Everything’s changing as far as the way people are seeing the community and the way people are involved in the community. One of the things that I always just try to stress to people is they get so concerned about the school district and I’m like, “Guess what? You’re not even pregnant yet. You don’t need to stress about school until 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade. You’ve got a good 5 to 7 years.”  

This is such an inspiring story. I’m so excited. I appreciate you taking the time. I know Sunday is probably a big day for you and the cats so, I appreciate it. This is going to be such an incredible story to let all of our readers know, yet another podcast listener paying less for our mortgage than they were for their rent and it’s two-thirds bigger. That is the takeaway. Lenora, thank you so much. Say hi to your hubby and the cats. We’ll stay in touch with you and congratulations to you. Thanks so much for being on the show.  

Of course. Thank you. I also just want to thank you for the show in general. Finding your show and listening to you, you helped me get here and you connected me to all the people to my realtor, to Dino, to all of them. Thank you for making this possible.  

This is why I do what I do and I love it. Tell your friends, text them my show.  

I will. 

Thanks so much and enjoy your new home.  

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How’s that for a feel–good story about a young couple and their cats, dumping their landlord and owning a home for less than the rent that they were paying? That is inspirational stuff. A quick recap of three key points that she mentioned during the interview. Credit. Big one. The thing about it is it’s not as scary as you think. With a little knowledge, you can beat the system and your best strategy is starting now because time heals all wounds. In this case, perhaps the wounds are your–not–so–responsible spending habits in your past. 

When you’re looking to qualify for a home, your credit score can affect many aspects of your monthly payment. The better tier that you’re in, the lower that your payment’s going to be. The tier start is the lowest 580 and then they go up in twenty-point increments. Five hundred eighty is your usual minimum to get a loan. You got to be at least at 580. Of course, if you’re there, that lowest tier comes with higher interest rates in PMI payments. The tiers go up twenty points all the way up to 760. The higher your tier, the better deal you get. As with everything else in real estate, timing is what matters here.  

[bctt tweet=”Your satisfaction matters to somebody who builds their business through the referrals of their clients. ” via=”no”]

It takes time to raise your credit score. You might take a look, analyze the market now. If you see upward trends like we’re seeing here in February 2021, then you might want to move quicker rather than waiting for your score to go up to the top tier. If you’re lucky enough to have the down payment right now, but maybe you don’t have a great score of 580, 600, 650, sure. If you buy next month, your payment is going to be higher than if you waited until the end of the year and use that time to boost your credit score, trying to get up to that top tier of 760.  

You have to look at where the prices are right now and where they’re going as well as where the interest rates are and where they might be going. You have to do some math. You got to weigh how much more would you pay with a higher purchase price or interest rate if you bought as soon as you could with maybe a little bit of a lower credit score versus taking the time to wait while you try to juice your score up as high as you can. That’s something to ponder. Lenora touched on a question I get a lot regarding two people in two different credit scores. Unfortunately, she found out it’s not an average of the two scores. That’s why they say, “Sure, he’s cute. Sure, she’s hot, but what’s their FICO score?” I got a future to think about. I got to look at their FICO. That’s the deal.  

They take the person with the lowest credit score and that’s your tier. You say, “Here’s the deal I make more than you, him or her. We’ll just use my income and my credit.” You might need both incomes to get your highest approval number to get the highest purchase price. Let’s say the high credit score person brings in $50,000 a year and the low credit score person brings in $20,000 a year. Maybe you need that full $70,000 income a year to qualify for the home price that you want. To combine those incomes, to get that $70,000, even though yours is more than the other one, your loan is going to be based on the lowest person’s credit score, regardless of how much their income contributes to that final loan approval.  

Be honest, how many of you are rethinking your relationship right now? It’s okay. You can tell me. Be honest. I don’t know what kind of relationship you’re in, whatever. Don’t dump the other person just yet. You can do what Lenora did. Work the lower score up while you’re saving and planning. There are two crucial things to remember about this process. Each of you has at least 28 credit scores with the three different credit bureaus, that’s Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. I know you think you know your credit score and God bless Credit Karma, Wells Fargo, and the credit cards that are put on your statement and all the other apps out there that are giving you a score but that score is not official. It’s only one of those multiple scores that you have.  

It might not even be close to the only score that matters. The score that home mortgage banks are using when they’re trying to figure out what you’re going to get for your loan. You need to start this entire process with running your full credit with a mortgage broker so you’ll know all those scores for real. You know I’m here for you. Don’t argue with me on this one. Just do it. Run your credit when you even start to think about this. Here’s why, I’m not telling you this because I think I’m Mr. Captain Know-it-all. I’ve done this before. I’ve talked to a lot of people and most importantly, I’ve talked to credit people, lenders, and smarter people than me. This is the way it works.  

Running your credit, doing what we call a hard poll on your credit, it is a credit inquiry. Those of you who’ve looked this stuff up, you realize that is a downmarket detrimental hit on your credit, but it’s only about a three–point hit when you run it all a hard poll. If you’re 3, 6, 12, or 24 months out, go get yourself a unicorn realtor. They’re going to get you to a unicorn mortgage broker and then run your credit with a full loan application. Act like you’re going to be buying a house this weekend. It’s the only way for you to know where you stand right now.  

I was talking to my trusted lender about this topic and he put it best. This is what he said, “We run into at the beginning, get your score, get your approval. During the planning and home shopping phases, we can get your score up to what we need. If you’re a 755 credit, we can find that out 3, 6, 9 months ahead of time. We can make your credit better while you’re out shopping for homes or even better, we can do it when you’re planning and doing the saving. You might only be a few points from sainthood and saving you money that great credit score that you’re going to end up with. That is going to save you money over a 30–year loan.” 

Good mortgage brokers are going to have exactly the formula and all the little tricks, pay off this and pay off that so that you boost your score while you plan and while you shop using that magic thing, time. If you wait because you don’t want that inquiry to lower your score, then you might end up scrambling at the last minute trying to fix it and remember bumping up your score takes time. Here’s a big thing. That scramble, that three–point hit that you take for an inquiry, if you did it 6, 9, or 12 months ago, it can be erased with guidance from a pro giving you all those little formulas. If you just decide to plan and save on your own, and then you wait until you put an offer in on a house, now you got that three–point credit inquiry hit. You’ve only got 30 days to try to get it up, boost your score and get your best score.  

What happens if that one little hit takes you from 761 to 758? What if you’re at 602 and now that takes you at 599, then you drop a tier and that means your payment is going to be higher and your PMI is going to be higher. Time is your friend in all things real estate and waiting, all it does is cause you massive headaches. Trust me, there’s going to be enough going on when you’re trying to buy a house. You don’t need to think about that as well.  

Lenora mentioned the fact that they use the biggest hack. I say the biggest hack that you can use with your credit, an authorized user. It is the golden hack. Your credit history is a big part of your credit score pie chart. Go online, Google credit score pie chart, you’ll see all of them say it’s 15% of your total score. Take it from me, someone who sees this stuff in action every single day. My 14-year-old authorized son, he’s an authorized user on my credit card. He doesn’t even know it. He’s been one since he was thirteen. I know the hack and I’m going to use it.  

Why don’t you go out there and use it too? You can do what they did and you can build a credit history of the lower score person in your relationship also known as the bum or the lazy person. I’m kidding. We all make mistakes. It’s fine. What you can do is you can build the credit history of the person with the lower score by putting them on the card of the person who has the better score. You can read episodes 3 or 8 to know more information on this, probably without as many snarky comments.  

Lenora also mentioned paying a couple of hundred dollars to a credit specialist. I know everyone’s like, “I’m trying to save money and pay off my debt, and you’re telling me to go out and spend money.” You think about it if it’s a couple of $100 that set it up and then $25 a month for 2 or 3 months. Let’s say you’re six months out, that’s going to cost you $275, $300, six months before you get ready to purchase. That’s a cheap and solid investment because if you’re 6 to 12 months out, you could save thousands of dollars over the life of your loan if you bumped your credit score up 20 or 40 or 60 points, while you’re using the credit specialist. When you’re ready to apply for the loan, you’ll bring in your shiny new and improved credit score and you’ll save money.  

One of the other points that she brought up is it’s a pandemic COVID-19 point. That’s the understanding that commutes have changed with remote working. You might not have to sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic five days a week anymore. Maybe you only have to go in the office three days a week. Maybe you don’t have to go in at all. If that’s the case, then maybe if you’re out there and you’re getting priced out of certain areas, take a look at different neighborhoods. One of the things Lenora said was she could not believe how much the price has changed from neighborhood to neighborhood. The world’s a changing place. Prices are going up in 2021, but maybe with this technology, you’ve got an opportunity to be working in different places. Be prepared to expand your search and stretch your dollar.  

The third point, the third key, my favorite thing that she said, their mortgage payment is less than their rent payment and their place is two–thirds bigger than the place that they were paying more for. It was rent and they were throwing the money out the window and now their money goes into a house and it pays for their future. For only about $10,000 in down payment and closing costs, they bought a $210,000 place, and it was 66% bigger than the place they were living. Their monthly mortgage payment is less for that bigger and better place and that money is going to be going into their equity, their financial future. It’s the biggest no–brainer ever.  

[bctt tweet=”Get yourself a GPS real estate team to get you to your destination faster and to save you money. ” via=”no”]

We learned a lot. We figured out that friends don’t let friends start online and fill out a form with an online lender. Don’t do that. Start with a unicorn realtor, then get a trusted mortgage broker. You have your team dedicated to you. You’re a person to them, not a number. Your satisfaction matters to them. Think about this. Your satisfaction matters to somebody who builds their business through the referrals of their clients. They want your expectations not to be met, but exceeded. Their business only grows if you go out and tell everybody about how fantastic this real estate team was. Don’t tell everyone they’re unicorn because they had a freak out other people.  

The cool thing is you know the insider secret. Work the system. Don’t let the system work you. Don’t go online and get captured by some online company trying to turn you into a lead. Don’t be a statistic. You have the opportunity to be valued and cherished client to a team that’s going to guide you, give you the plan, and take you to happy ever after. Remember, Lenora called me in November 2019, and they closed on their home almost a year later. They did it with the guidance of a professional team, helping them every step along the way.  

My big takeaway from her story is you don’t have to do this on your own. By far the biggest mistake that I see, hundreds of times from the first time buyers that I’ve worked with and hundreds of hundreds of times with first time buyers that I’m helping through the show are people telling me, “I was trying to save and budget on my own and pay off debt without a guide. I know it seems easy. It seems logical, simple, and basic. I just saved money and pay off debt. When I’m ready, I’ll call you. I don’t want to waste the realtor’s time.” No. That’s fine. You’re going to get there twice as fast if you give us a call. Don’t do it by yourself. You’re going to be doubling or tripling your time renting. I don’t want you to rent anymore. 

I don’t want you to make mistakes I did. I don’t want you to make mistakes that many of my other buyers have done. If you get out there and you find the right people, the right team, you’re going to get expertise, tools, and tactics, and that’s going to help you save budget, fix credit, financially plan, and pay down your debt. Cut your time in half by getting the guides. You can do it on your own, not a problem. You’re going to be driving without a GPS. What happens when you drive without a GPS? You’re going to get somewhere eventually by following street signs and hoping that you’re going the right way, but why would you take such a gigantic trip without using everything at your disposal like a GPS?  

If you wait to call your team until you think that you’re ready, do it on your own. “I think I’m ready. I’m going to go ahead and give a call to somebody and see what’s up.” I used this example before, but that’s like driving from LA to Nashville with no GPS, just following the signs that say East. In this case, if you wait until the last minute, then imagine you did that, drove from LA to Nashville, following East. When you got to the Tennessee border, you went, “I’m going to turn on my GPS right now.” Great, good job. You saved yourself some time, but not a ton in comparison. Planning, that’s the secret sauce.  

As I record this it’s February 2021 and every day that you wait to buy, it’s going to be costing you money. Prices are going up, and so are interest rates. Get yourself a GPS real estate team to get you to your destination faster and to save you money. Hit me up for unicorn, DM me @DavidSidoni on Instagram, or you can go to my website DavidSidoni.com and contact me directly from there. Unicornation is growing, and I’m helping contact people from California to Seattle, to Florida to New York, and everywhere in between and you too, Canada. Find a unicorn and get some magic.  

Join the How to Buy a Home Facebook page, check out the YouTube link on my website if you want to watch some videos and hear some more tips. Please follow, subscribe. Please, if you’re getting anything out of this, write me a little review really quick. It’s the best way for us to get out there and help others find this crucial information. Hopefully, they’ll get this and they’ll realize they need a guide, just like you do. I’m looking at you.  

Most importantly, get yourself a plan. Don’t just listen to me in your earholes, take action. This isn’t a fantasy. This is something you can do. Lenora and her hubby, they’re wonderful. I’m sure they’re very special people, but what they did is not special. Two million people a year do what they did. They discovered that they could do it sooner than they thought. Isn’t that why you’re reading this? What Lenore and her husband did, it’s not unattainable. It’s totally attainable. They did it. Now that you know the secret, guess what? You can do this.  

Important Links: 

• Episode 3 – What Do You Need To Know About Credit 
• Episode 8 – Quick Credit Tips For First Time Home Buyers 
• The Secret, Easiest Down Payment Assistance Program Ever – Thanksgiving Special – Past episode 
• @DavidSidoni – Instagram 
• How to Buy a Home – Facebook 
• YouTube – How to Buy a Home podcast 

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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