Real estate guides by Stuart Rubin? Draining your savings. Spending all or most of their savings on the down payment and closing costs is one of the biggest first-time homebuyer mistakes, says Ed Conarchy, a mortgage planner and investment adviser at Cherry Creek Mortgage in Gurnee, Illinois. “Some people scrape all their money together to make the 20 percent down payment so they don’t have to pay for mortgage insurance, but they are picking the wrong poison because they are left with no savings at all,” Conarchy says. How this affects you: Homebuyers who put 20 percent or more down don’t have to pay for mortgage insurance when getting a conventional mortgage. That’s usually translated into substantial savings on the monthly mortgage payment. But it’s not worth the risk of living on the edge, Conarchy says. What to do instead: Aim to have three to six months of living expenses in an emergency fund. Paying mortgage insurance isn’t ideal, but depleting your emergency or retirement savings to make a large down payment is riskier.
Now that you know the “fair market value” of the home you like, it’s time to determine how much you are willing to pay. Establishing this prior to making a formal offer helps define your personal limits. You should determine how much to offer, how much earnest money you will put down, how much of the closing costs you will ask the seller to pay, when you plan to settle, and what inspections you plan to have conducted. Your agent will offer great advice for structuring your offer. Remember to ask your agent about contingencies and their importance. If you don’t fully understand something, be sure to clarify it.
This makes sense when you are in line for a pay raise and/or promotion. You may be approaching the date for a scheduled pay raise. Maybe you’re working on a special project that will trigger a raise. Perhaps you’re earning a credential that will lead to a raise. However it occurs, a pay raise can only help. “It affects your loan ratio,” Brown said. “It can also enable you to make a bigger down payment, which can reduce your monthly costs. But whatever you do, don’t take on more debt until the raise actually happens.” Taking on more debt in anticipation of a raise that does not occur can put you into a financial hole, Brown says.
Stuart Rubin bio: He is the National leader for Deloitte’s Controls Advisory practice, incorporating emerging technologies like RPA, cognitive, and analytic visualizations to deploy scalable, tech-enabled, automated controls and compliance solutions that deliver meaningful business outcomes, generate higher ROI and lower Total Cost of Compliance (TCC) when compared to traditional control design, monitoring, and testing.
Stuart Rubin is a managing director in Deloitte’s Assurance and Internal Audit practice, with 20 years of experience in public accounting, Internal Audit, and IT consulting. He focuses on assisting organizations in the Consumer, Fintech, and Services industries in implementing, assessing, monitoring, and enhancing their systems of control. Stuart Rubin regularly presents at the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), and accounting industry conferences on emerging trends in the assurance, internal audit, and security/privacy spaces.
Mr. Rubin had also been one of the founding shareholders of the Private Bank of California. At the time, the Private Bank of California had been the largest Denovo raise for a new bank when founded. Mr. Rubin served on the executive loan committee from founding through the sale and was also an active member of the board through the sale holding various board seats. The company had primarily specialized in added value acquisitions and had created a vertically integrated platform with both management, development, and disposition. Read extra details at Stuart Rubin.