Welcome to North Shore Bank's In Your Interest Podcast. If you're a first time home buyer, you probably have a few questions when it comes to home lending. Here to share some mortgage planning tips is Susan Lidell, one of our mortgage experts. Hi, I'm Susan Lidell at North Shore Bank. I'm a loan officer here, and it's my job to help you realize your dream of home ownership.
Today, we're going to talk about planning for your mortgage. Your current lifestyle should not change because you want to purchase a home. If your lifestyle is changing because you want to purchase a home, then that means the house owns you. Let's go. And I'm in the job of helping you realize the dream of you owning a house.
So keep that in mind as you're looking. Next thing I'd like to talk to you about is homebuyer education. There's a lot of programs that we have here at North Shore Bank that require homebuyer education. Some of that's because of the program, some of it's because you're utilizing a grant, or some of the down payment assistance programs.
But I think it's a good idea for anyone who hasn't purchased in the last 15 years, even 10 years, to go and review what we're looking for for a home purchase. The next thing I'd like to talk about is savings. Budget your money. You have to budget your money. If you're not budgeting your money, then when I ask you how much do you want your house payment to be, you're not going to have any idea.
And I am going to ask you, how much do you want your house payment to be when you've thought about purchasing? What do you view as what your outlay is on a monthly basis? I know I'm looking at principal interest taxes and insurance. Are you? So what does that budget look like? A good idea to get a grasp on what you're spending on a monthly basis?
Write everything down. Do it for a couple months. See where your money's going. See if you're saving. If you're not saving, I suggest you start saving. And you can do that a couple different ways. Budgeting is like a diet. You can lay out special aid plans. If there's no action, it doesn't do you any good.
The hardest part is sticking to it. A lot of people love budgets, and they stick to it. And they're good at it, and they love it. Most of us don't. Very few people can go out and say, I want that house and I'm going to buy it. That would be an impulse purchase. A home is not an impulse purchase. You need to go and you need to look at a couple of them.
You need to find the one that feels right for you. And there's a house out there for everybody. And the other thing I'd like to talk to you about is going to see your loan officer. I, I, everybody's different. I like to see people six months to a year, especially if you're a first time home buyer, because then we can talk about what do we need to do?
How much money do we have to set aside? Here's a saving tip for a first time home buyer. Take the money that you want to spend a month. Let's say 900. Put it away in a savings account for 12 months. You'll have 10, 800 to use towards your purchase. Whether we use all of that or a little bit of that, that's going to be up to what we decide is good for you.
I like to help home buyers keep a little bit of that in their savings account for emergencies for their home. So, you want to purchase a home, make sure it fits your lifestyle, make sure you educate yourself, Make sure you budget and continue to save. Come see us at North Shore Bank. Let us help you become a successful homeowner.
To learn more about North Shore Bank's home lending and mortgage services, visit NorthShoreBank. com slash mortgage. Thanks again for listening to North Shore Bank's In Your Interest podcast. To subscribe to the show, you can do so through iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. To listen to previous episodes, visit northshorebank.com/podcast. Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender.