Buying my first home

I bought my first home in March 2005. I made some mistakes and I have some regrets. Now I am actively involved in the real estate market and I would like to share my experience to help others have a better experience in their quest to become homeowners.

I guess the first topic is the decision to buy a home. I live in Orange County California and the real estate market was booming for many years when I came to the decision to buy. I hadn't really considered buying before because I had put my life on auto-pilot.

Then I met a girl in China and after some time I asked her to marry me. Then I began to re-evaluate my lifestyle. I realized that it is better to pay towards building equity in my own home rather than pay down my landlords mortgage. But my fiancee asked me to wait until she was able to come to the US and help me with the payments. So I postponed pulling the trigger for a couple of years.

I also had a friend who was living in the same apartments who moved out. She was cheated by the property management company when she got her security deposit back. After some research we found out that owner of the apartment complex and also the owner of the property managment company was the most sued person in Orange County. He also made himself a boatload of cash from all the renters. In fact, he made such a large contribution to George W. Bush's campaign against Al Gore that when Bush won, he appointed him as ambassador to Spain.
This left a bad impression with me whenever I thought of the management company.

Still, I was newly married and adjusting to married life so I didn't think much about buying a home again until my lease was almost up. When I got the notice that they were increasing my rent $100/month if I signed a year lease and $125 if I went month to month I decided I would buy a house before my lease expired. I became a very motivated buyer and this is never a good thing. I had little more than a month from the time I seriously started looking until the time I wanted to be in my new home.

The level of motivation is one of the things that led to my making some bad choices along the way. So my first piece of advice is to plan well, and don't be in too much of a hurry to buy a house. The process can take months to make sure you do the best deal for your situation and your needs. This will be one of the biggest decisions in most peoples lives. Take the time to make the right choices and seek out advice from others with more experience. Come to http://www.firsttimehomebuyerforum.com to ask questions and share your experiences with other people making the journey to the American Dream of homeownership.

I will discuss market trends and whether now is the best time to buy in another post. I will be posting here with tips and stories about homebuying regularly.