[ad_1] So you want to buy a house sometime in the near future? You’re not alone. Thousands of people will become first-time homeowners over the next few years. Even with mortgage rates increasing slightly, it could still be a great time to buy. Table of Contents Run a Personal Cost Benefit Analysis Get Your Credit Score in Shape Start Saving for That Down Payment Understand Your Mortgage Options Make Your “Must Have” List Get a Feel for Local Real Estate Figure Out Your Budget Get Pre-Approved for a Mortgage Start Shopping Around Make a Smart Offer Steps After the Offer Come to Closing Prepared Don’t Forget the New Homeowner’s Budget But getting ready to buy your first home is a big deal. It involves a lot of preparation, saving, and legwork. So before you start shopping around on Zillow, read through our complete guide to buying your first home. We’ll give you lots of solid advice, and then link you to other articles where you can get a more in-depth explanation of certain concepts. Run a Personal Cost-Benefit Analysis Before you buy your first home, you should decide whether that’s what you really want. All too often, buyers assume that purchasing a home is the right choice. After all, that’s how you build equity and wealth right? And you’ll stop “throwing money away” in rent every month? Well, maybe. The fact is that homeownership isn’t for everyone. And you’ll need to look at your personal situation–financial and otherwise–objectively to figure out if it’s the right move for you. For instance, what if you’re building a budding career that’s likely to take you to a new location within the next couple of years? Once you buy a home, you may need to own it for several years before you’ll break even when you sell. That’s because there are plenty of costs involved with both buying and selling. So if you’re highly mobile, right now may not be the best time to buy a home. On the other hand, if you think you’ll be in the same location for a while and are ready to settle in, homeownership may be for you. But even in this case, it’s not always true that buying a home is best. Here’s what you need to consider first: Don’t Assume You’ll Save Money If rents are high in your area, it’s easy to assume that a modest mortgage would be cheaper than your monthly rent. And, in fact, your mortgage payment might be cheaper than your rent payment. But that doesn’t mean homeownership is necessarily less expensive than renting. When you rent, someone else is absorbing many of the costs of maintaining and improving the property you live in. That’s why rent is expensive! When you own the home, you’re on the hook for the broken water heater, the leaking roof, or the everyday maintenance of windows and driveways and gutters. With all these additional costs, owning a home could wind up being more expensive than renting. Check out this article for a list of 30 things you’ll need to budget for when you own a home. On the flip side, owning a home lets you build equity in a valuable piece of property. Sure, that $200 you pay to fix the plumbing may not help you build wealth directly. But your $800 a month mortgage payment will go partially towards building equity in your home. And that can be powerful. The bottom line here is that you can’t make assumptions either way. You need to look at what you pay as a renter, what you’re likely to pay as a homeowner, and which option works best for you financially. Related: How House Hacking Works And Remember Time, Too For more and more people, renting is becoming something of a lifestyle choice. When you own a home, you’re tied down with weekend chores. Trust me, it takes a lot of time to do even the basics like maintaining the lawn and minor home repairs. When you add in things like keeping the roof in good condition and cleaning the gutters, you can kiss at least half your weekends goodbye. Again, this isn’t a cut-and-dry argument. For some people (like me) the wealth building or emotional aspect of owning a home is enough to counterbalance the time it requires. But if you can’t picture yourself settling into domesticity to maintain your new home, maybe you should stick with renting for a while longer. So before you even start shopping around or looking at mortgage rates, run your own personal cost-benefit analysis. This article gives a detailed explanation of how to do this, including some tools to help you do the math. Get Your Credit Score in Shape If you decide buying a home is the right option for you, it’s time to do the preliminary work of getting your credit score in shape. (Honestly, you should do this even if you plan to be a renter forever and ever, amen. Eventually, you’ll probably need some credit, so having a good credit score is a good idea!) This starts with actually knowing what your credit score is. You can go about this in a couple of different ways. One option is to get your credit score for free. Several websites, such as Credit Sesame and Credit Karma, offer a free credit score. These are great tools, since they also help you analyze your score and find ways to improve it. You can also get your credit score from many credit card companies. Some, like Discover, offer the option even to those who aren’t customers. More on those options here. However, as you get closer to applying for a mortgage, it may be a good idea to spring for a copy of your “real” credit score–the one lenders see. In fact, I would go so far as to purchase a copy of your score from each of the three bureaus. Here’s how you can do that. How to Boost Your Score We’ve got a