Top Tips to a Millennial's First Home

It’s tough for Millennials to land their first home lately. Just getting one foot in the door seems almost impossible, and many young adults are stuck renting an apartment rather than becoming a homeowner. It seems unfair, so arm yourself with a few of these tips while dreaming about your first home.

Keep your options open

Although they end up renting for much longer than their parents did at their age, millennials also see the benefits of buying a home. It’s just not as easy as it was back then. Even if it’s all been saved up for, the selection is slim, and you should ask yourself some important questions first. Like what type of home would best suit your needs? Each option comes with advantages and disadvantages and keeping your options open could make it a more affordable purchase. 

Look at your finances

It’s no good dreaming if you don’t have your finances in order. In case you don’t, this is a good time to get started with sorting your bills out and paying each one on time. You need to be able to show the bank that you can handle the monthly payments and the fees that follow - owning and buying a home isn’t all that easy, and most lenders will turn their backs to you immediately if you have a history on non-payments. 

If you have all this in order, you should first figure out how much you’re able to borrow. This will give you a good indication of what kind of home you should be looking for. Settle on a lender by going through different mortgage websites and make sure you’re pre-approved for a loan before making an offer; it’s no point, really, in making an offer without a mortgage pre-approval.

Think out of the box

Buying a house and making it into a home is almost like a rite of passage. With the difficulties of just getting into the market, it could be an idea to make the painful process pay off even more. Make it an investment to create an additional cash flow by buying a house instead of a home. That way, you’ll be able to buy another house or apartment with what you make of the first one - which you can turn into a home if you will. 

Look at affordable housing schemes

Many people have been upset about the troubles they’re having with buying their first home, and rightly so. That’s why the government has introduced schemes to help us a bit on the way; make sure you look at those that are relevant to you. Here are some happy stories about people who became homeowners for the first time, many of them with the help of a government-backed scheme. 

The market is tough, so we’ll have to be even tougher; by keeping an eye on your finances, sorting out your budget and being one of the first in line, you’ll be decorating your first home a bit quicker than you thought.