You Only Get to Buy Your First Home Once

Okay, I wasn't too inspired for the title. Please keep reading, pretty please?

I’ve recently had the chance to relive the first-time home buying experience vicariously through my co-worker, that’s currently in the process buying her first house. By talking to her about mortgage insurance, interest rates, first year expenses, etc. it has made me realize how clueless I was when I went through the purchase process myself. All those HGTV shows didn’t prepare me as much as I had hoped, and the more worrisome question is: did I really want to hear the advice people had to give me? The answer to that is probably no. I say this because I can’t really remember what 4-year-ago-me was thinking at time.

In retrospect, I wish I would have known what I know now. It’s too late for that, nevertheless I did get 2 great pieces of advice during the whole process and here they are. If you only take away two things from this blog, hopefully these are the two: 1- Try to keep your housing costs down as you will want to have a life outside your house (from my friend Sacha) and 2- You’ll always end up winning with a variable interest rate (from my Financial advisor Kate). Don’t get me wrong, being a homeowner is expensive, yet four years later I get to enjoy life with trips, sports and other outings, and I’ve have managed to lower my 35 year mortgage to 18 years.

Now you’re wondering how you can achieve this too. They key for me was the type of mortgage. I promise to do a post on this, as I have all sorts of information kicking around the ole brain that can help you make this hard decision.

Hello, this is me.

Four years ago, tired of apartment living, I decided to buy a house on my own. Here are the chronicles of a single, 30 something gal trying to do it all: work, have a social life and maintain a house. 

So, I would like to start out saying that I’m a very ambitious person. Unfortunately, my social life sometimes gets in the way of completing projects.  But that’s OK; I’ve grown to accept the way I am. I do have an ever growing list of things to do around the house, which I will eventually get done at my own pace. Please note that A) if you don’t understand sarcasm leave this blog immediately as you will not enjoy this at all and B) this blog is all about sharing my experience of buying and owning a house for the first time. Hopefully you will get a couple of laughs (at my expense) along the way.