What It's Like Buying Your First House:

Hi everyone,

So buying a house is an interesting experience that is both exciting and frustrating. It's very much a rollercoaster ride. I can say that it is so so so rewarding and worth it.

Okay, so some of the scary and unknown pieces:

-The inspection: being this is my first house, there were so many things that I did not understand about this initially. I had brought a notebook to my inspection, but like an idiot...I did not write anything down. I did have my family there so I was hoping that they would "catch everything." I recommend being a bit more prepared in that area. But the inspector will write a report so don't feel too too pressured to write everything down.

-Time to close: It felt like in this time period, nothing was happening (even though it was at the bank). But....I will say that is when nerves run a bit high because you have already put in notice at your apartment, but if your finances don't pan out....you might just be homeless!

-Bartering with the buyers: This is done between the realtors, but I felt that it was stressful in a way. The frequent phone calls and changing of conditions really stressed me out. You want to offer something that the sellers will accept but also do what is best for you. I found this tough.

-And lastly.....MONEY. I will say that ya need some of that in order to buy a home. There are two ways to think about this: 1) You may be able to afford more than you think or... 2) You may need to save more than you think.

How about that for conflicting information.

I'm not going to divulge into your finances but you know where you are at ;)

One of my main goals of getting my first house was to start gaining some equity so that I could have more leverage in the future someday buy a bigger/nicer house that I really really wanted someday.

However, I will say make sure you are ready READY to have a house. Think of the whole picture. You will have a lawn and a yard to maintain and water. The lawn and shrubs can grow fast and when you add this to your other responsibilities it may be a lot on your plate (going to the gym, your job, any pets, any kids, etc.). Don't forget to add on the water bill, electricity bill, and garbage bill. Now add in home projects, which are AWESOME!! But they are also very demanding at the same time. There are always the things that seem to just "come up" to with a house. And I mean this in two ways. One way where it comes up as a surprise because your boiler went out... THATS expensive. And the second way where you have this grand plan of putting in a garbage disposal and you did not account for the electrical work that you needed to do. Nor did you account for the special tool (and Hulk strength) that you needed to get the previous drain off of the sink. The real kicker is when you have watched YouTube videos and did your research, BUT you did not have the experience. Soooooo you find yourself in a real pickle and now your sink is....lets just say... "under construction" for a few days. Luckily this did not happen, my dad helped me out.

I can't say it enough things like THIS will happen. And I can't even to begin to tell you how many random tools that you will need for a project that you never would have guessed. Fathers are amazing for this. They just "know" these things and are great DIYers. And I get so frustrated with Pinterest and YouTube because it can make things look so easy. Well....LIFE! It happens.

So now that you have read my (um...little) rant about DIYs, I would say buy the house if you can. Apartments suck. You will be building equity, learning new problem solving skills, and learning how to fix things.

I will say that the jump itself was scary, but since I have done it, I don't regret it at all.