When I was rounding out my last semester of my senior year in undergrad, I realized that I was going to need to stay somewhere when I started working in a few months. Usually when people are heading down this path they choose to find a good apartment in the city that they are relocating too. And that was the path that I was going down.
That is until my father told me that I should try to purchase a home since I have good credit, and a future job with good pay lined up. He also said that I should build or buy a new home so I wouldn’t have to worry about fixing things when they break down in a few years.
Buckle up because in this blog you are going to get a sneak peak into my life of how I was able to build a home when I was 21 right out of college. A Lot of dominos had to fall into the right place at the right time in order for this to happen. So don’t use this as a comparison. Use it more as a guide in case you want to do the same thing one day.
The first thing I want to say is that buying a home is not for everyone. If you only plan on being at a location for a couple of years or less. Then renting an apartment or home would be the best thing. However, if you plan on staying longer or permanently then why not purchase a home.
PROOF OF FUNDS
This all started with my career. I was lucky enough to have a job offer for a full time position before I even started my senior year in college. This offer letter detailed the potential start date, and the salary that I was going to receive. This letter, along with a signature, was good enough to provide proof of funds for the mortgage company.
I also had multiple accounts with money in it. I had a savings account, checking account, and investment account. They had enough money in them to help show that I already had funds to cover lets say the cost of closing. I also received money from people when I graduated undergrad. And since I believe in saving most of my money, all of that money helped show that I had funds even though I did not have a job during that time.
CREDIT
This is a topic that has been brought up multiple times, and that is because it is really important. When I knew I was going to be purchasing a home one of the first things I did was pull my credit report from the three main bureaus. I talked about doing this in a previous post so please check it out if you need more information.
I pulled my report to make sure there weren’t any blemishes or false information on there that could prevent me from having the best score possible. I would say do this about 2 months before you start inquiring about loans for your mortgage.
PROCESS
I used a mortgage broker to shop around to find me the best loan with a low interests rate. I even talked about all the benefits of a mortgage broker from an earlier post. I was also able to benefit from the low federal interest rate during the start of the pandemic.
During closing I put down 6% of the home, this was due to me not wanting to spend all of my money one a down payment especially since I didn’t have any income at the time. I did not need a cosigner which was cool lol. I crunched the numbers enough that they trusted that I could pay for this home by myself.
The last thing is the money I saved on the down payment only putting down 6% I was able to use to fully furnish my home by buying furniture for two bedrooms, a kitchen, a family room, and an office. This was important as I did not want to sleep on an air mattress or eat standing up.
ROB’S OPINION
I hope you gained something from this post. Again, this is my own experience and your experience is going to be different than mine. What I wanted to accomplish with this was to show you that it is possible to purchase a home without a job at a young age. All you have to do is think and plan ahead.
If you have some other tips that you would like to share please comment below. As always if you have any questions please ask, I will do my best to answer every question that you all have about the home buying process.
