Whether you’re seeking luxury properties for an investment in the international real estate market or are looking for equestrian homes in the Palm Springs Valley, buying property is a significant transaction that typically requires a lot of time and effort. There are many elements that go into just the preparation alone—you have to find a realtor or listing agent you can work with, assemble the savings necessary for the down payment, closing costs and any other associated fees, and you need to qualify for a loan.
To get your financial house in order, you should start with your credit score. The first thing to do is request reports from the three major credit agencies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. From there, you can get your credit score and examine your reports to see if there are any discrepancies that need to be corrected or anything negative that you can get removed. These reports will show any late payments, judgments and other credit problems that you might have on your record. Keep in mind you’ll need to scour each report, as they will show different items and yield different scores. Low credit scores can hurt your chances of getting the best interest rate for financing that new home or international real estate purchase, or even prevent it altogether. Once you start working on repairing your credit, it can take up to two to three months for the issues to be resolved.
Your next step is to determine your purchasing power. There are many online calculators that can help you determine what you can afford and how much your mortgage payments will be, based on your credit, income and the amount of your down payment. Whether you’re interested in equestrian homes or other types of properties, a general guideline is to aim to find a property that costs no more than two and a half times your gross yearly income.
From there, you’ll need to save up the cash for your down payment and other associated costs. Typically, lenders require your down payment to be around 20 percent of the home’s total price.
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