Are you sick and tired of having your landlord not make the necessary repairs on your rental property or getting fed up with having your rent raised every year?

Hi, my name's Adrian Goss. I'm with the Goss Group here at eXp Realty. And today we're going to be talking about the home buying process and what you can do to get prepared for making a move this year.

Step number one is you're going to want to work on getting your credit work done, or fixed if need be. Minimum scores from a lot of loan programs are going to be around 580. However, I would recommend trying to get to a 640 credit score that will open up more options for you in the financing world. And a lot of times people don't even know where their credit score lies. So I suggest getting onto one of those online free credit check softwares like Credit Karma or something along those lines. This is not going to be the end all be all for your credit check, but it will at least give you a good idea of where you may lie.

Step number two is you're going to want to start doing some savings for your down payment and closing costs. And your down payment can range anywhere from 0% down all the way up to 20% down or more. But typically for first time home buyers, we like to see 3% conventional, three and a half percent down FHA. And then there are 0% down options. However, they're not as popular in our current market when it's super competitive. So I'd like to suggest getting to approximately $10,000 as a bare minimum, but really more like 20K is what you're going to need for down payment. And closing costs. Closing costs are typically going to range between two to 3% of the purchase price. So for a $400,000 home, you're looking at somewhere between 10 to $12,000 in closing costs.

A quick little tip that I like to have is set up a bank account that's separate from your checking and savings, so you can't even really look at it and then just automatically send money each month to that account. So it's kind of like set it and forget it. If you manually try to save for a down payment, it's a lot more difficult. You think about it too much. So just have that account set up so that you can send money each month. You don't even have to think about it. It's just automatically taken care of.

Third, we're going to talk about is having work history and you're going to need to have consistent work hours and time on the job to get a loan. And if your job is really sporadic, maybe you're not getting full time, it could be a challenge for your loan. So that's where speaking with a really good lender is going to be able to help you on that path of what you need to work on, such as credit, how much cash you'll need and they're going to take a look at your work history to see if you even are available to get a loan. If you're self-employed, you're going to want to have about two years of work history. So just something to keep in mind, salary and hourly positions, you don't need as much time on the job, but your lender will be able to answer that for you.

Lastly, we'd love for you to talk with a local agent that has a track record of success, And we would love to help you with your home buying process. If you have any questions about this video or about the home buying process, please feel free to reach out to me at 209-226-3096, or you can reach me at gossgroupca.com. Thanks so much and have a great day.