We're Buying A House? Step 1 in Our Homebuying Journey
Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew!
For my family, and everyone really, 2020 is a year of massive change. So far, we’ve broken our lease, left the city where we lived for a decade, moved to a short-term rental in the suburbs, pulled our kids from daycare, and enrolled them in a new preschool sight unseen.
And now, we’re buying a house. Several of our friends are as well, as are many readers. So, I thought this would be a great time to write about how it’s gone so far, and share some tips I found helpful.
We’re only about midway through the process right now, but already have learned a wealth of useful information, made some mistakes, did a few smart things, and had a couple of lucky breaks.
In future posts on this subject, I’m going to talk about how we approached a wide range of things, including determining a budget, valuing homes, shopping for mortgages, finding a real estate agent and an attorney, and negotiating with sellers.
But first, a call for stories. Have you ever bought a house? If so, I’d love to hear about your experiences and any tips you found helpful. And especially if you’ve bought a house since COVID, how did it go?
And now…Andrew’s pick of the week:
How To With John Wilson
I have a soft spot for mockumentaries. Nathan For You, while uneven, has moments of pure brilliance. Documentary Now! is often hilarious (particularly if you’ve seen the source material). And of course Christopher Guest’s films are great.
How To With John Wilson is a worthy addition to the genre. Filmed by relative unknown John Wilson, it combines loosely connected footage and interviews on a fairly random topic (e.g., small talk, memory, scaffolding) in a way that is often interesting, strange, and occasionally hilarious. I recommend starting with the memory and scaffolding episodes, they are both great (skip the episodes on small talk and furniture).
If you don’t have an HBO subscription, do what we did - get a seven day free trial to HBO on Amazon to watch the show. Just make sure to cancel it before seven days are up to avoid being auto-billed.
I hope this has been helpful. If you liked it, please share it with a friend! Also, please send me your feedback, requests, and success stories.