You are wasting time.
You can do more research on how to buy a house.
You can listen to another podcast and get inspired to finally get your credit together.
You can watch the best YouTube tutorial on what to expect when you apply for a mortgage…
But unless you act, all that knowledge is sadly just a waste of time.
It may feel like you need to watch one more video. Listen to one more story. Read one more post…
But honestly…
doing the thing is the greatest teacher, and it is SO underrated.
My favorite real estate podcast is Bigger Pockets. I listened to every single episode religiously for about four years! But I stopped listening to the show in 2019.
Not because the show no longer added value. The guests were always very inspiring and doing massive real estate deals.
I stopped listening because I was wasting time.
I was getting distracted.
I was researching and looking into home buying strategies that were not aligned with what I wanted to do.
Why spend hours researching how to buy a 100-unit apartment building if my focus right now is on building a garage apartment in my backyard?
My squirrel tendencies ARE REAL. 🥲🐿️
So instead of relying on self discipline to stop myself from researching a new strategy every week, I just removed the temptation.
I stopped adding more ideas into my head, so I could focus and execute with the knowledge I already had.
Does this sound familiar? Is the noise from listening to all kinds of information distracting you from taking action and moving forward with buying just ONE house.
There is no need to increase your stress (and blood pressure), or waste your time and energy thinking about step number 159 if you haven’t even taken step number 1.
You absolutely CAN buy a house this year. But if you want to make that a reality, you must get uncomfortable and take REAL action even if you feel like you are not ready.
Here are three things you can DO this week (without extra research) to get you one step closer to buying a house this year
1️⃣ Get clear on what you want
90% of millionaires invest in real estate. But they certainly aren’t buying houses with no plan and no strategy.
You may not care to be a millionaire. But your first house presents an opportunity…
It can either generate an income and help you to create wealth
OR just add to your list of bills and “maybe” create wealth.
The outcome depends on how intentional you are when you buy this house.
Just saying “I want to make money with my house” isn’t going to magically create an opportunity.
You first need to understand yourself and what you want. Once you know that, THEN you can determine how this house can become a tool to help you create the life that you want.
If could snap your fingers and create your reality what would that look like…
⇾ Where would you want to live?
⇾ What would you want to do?
⇾ Who would you want to be close to?
⇾ What situations give you joy?
⇾ What situations bring you stress?
⇾ What types of people do you like to work with?
Knowing yourself and knowing the life you want to build will help you to make decisions that align with that end goal.
So, take some time to reflect and write out the type of life you would live if there were no constraints.
2️⃣ Check your mortgage credit score
You will need at least a 580 mortgage credit score to buy a house.
To have the best loan options, you want to have a 620 mortgage credit score at minimum.
Where many home buyers go wrong is they either aren’t tracking their credit score at all or they are tracking the wrong credit score.
You, my friend, have over 100 credit scores! 🤯
The credit score that matters the most is the one you need for the specific thing you are applying for.
Mortgage lenders use a mortgage FICO score when evaluating mortgage applications.
So that score you are seeing on Credit Karma…
that score you are seeing for free with your Chase credit card…
that scores you are seeing from your bank…
That’s all fake news when it comes to buying a house.
The only place you can get your mortgage FICO score is either by using myfico.com OR by allowing a mortgage lender to run your credit.
Any other score you’re looking at is irrelevant when it comes to buying a house.
So, take a few minutes to check your mortgage FICO scores.
The middle mortgage score is what will be used by lenders. If your mortgage scores are 670 600 and 550. 600 is what will be used as your score.
3️⃣ Organize your mortgage application documents
The only way to get a definite answer on how much of a mortgage you can qualify for is by speaking to a mortgage lender.
It costs you nothing to talk to a mortgage lender.
So gather your documents so that when you are ready to speak to a lender, they can give you a more precise estimate of how much you qualify for and what your mortgage options are.
Now the goal is to take small steps. So you do NOT need to find all documents on this list at one time.
Pick ONE item on the list that you are going to find first. And continue to pick one or two items every week until you have all the documents gathered.
I suggest having a folder on your computer or phone where you can save all the files in one place.
This will make life easier for you when you reach out to a mortgage lender.
Which one of these 3 actions are you going to do this week?
Comment below and let’s chat about it!
