Finding the perfect home is only half the battle when you’re house hunting. The other half is getting a mortgage to pay for the perfect house you found. This side of the coin has less to do with personal preferences and more to do with having a plan and being prepared. To get qualified for a mortgage it helps to start the process long before you start looking at houses. This isn’t always straightforward and there are a lot of myths out there that can lead you down the wrong trail.

My Income is High Enough to Get Approved

While income is one of the factors lenders will look at, it’s not the only one. Just because you make a good living doesn’t mean you’ll automatically be approved. Other factors you need to consider are your credit score, down payment, and debt to income ratio. It’s important to remember that no one single factor will make or break your loan, so don’t get too focused on one or the other.

20% Down is Required

While almost every financial planner will recommend that you put 20% down, it isn’t required to get a loan. If you don’t have the time or the means to gather up that kind of liquid capital, most lending institutions will let you put down a lesser amount. However, putting less than 20% down will likely increase your interest rate, and you might be required to purchase private mortgage insurance (PMI) on top of your loan. Again, it’s always a good idea to put 20% down, but putting less down is okay if you can afford the higher monthly costs.

Closing Costs are Just the Down Payment

Saving up for the 20% or less for the down payment isn’t the only up-front cost you’ll need to account for. The term closing costs refers to several items rolled together that you may have to pay for up-front, and these costs can add up fast. Closing costs can range from 3%-6% of the value of the home and consist of inspections, fees, taxes, and few other costs. The bright side is that these costs are up for negotiation. When you put an offer on the house, you can haggle with the seller and see if they’re willing to pay closing costs.

One of the most difficult hurdles to overcome when buying a new house can often be selling your current house. Getting caught in the house shuffle and trying to get the timing right is a common problem we see all the time. After building custom homes in Tulsa for more than 20 years, we know a thing or two about selling homes and thought we would share a few tricks we’ve picked up.

Take Yourself Out of the Picture

The first item on your to-do list should be to take down all the personal touches in your home. The goal is for potential home buyers to picture themselves living in this house, not think about the family that’s lived here for the past 10 years.

Do the Least You Can 

When staging a home, try to be as neutral and minimal as possible. Buyer’s taste in furniture and décor can vary greatly and the last thing you want them to remember is how much they hated your decorating. Keep it basic so they can easily imagine their own style and taste going into the home.

Organize Everything 

You can bet dollars to donuts that buyers will be looking through your closets and cabinets to investigate how much storage the home has. This is a great time to show off how organized you are. Doing so will let them know that you’ve taken great care of this home.

Fix It Up 

Being a homeowner allows you to overlook minor repairs that need to be made, but these can be red flags for a home buyer. Before buyers step foot in your home, do a walk-through of your home and pretend you’re the one looking for a new home and make note of anything that needs to be fixed. Then call the repairman or fix it yourself. Either way, just make sure your home is in tip-top shape.

As our society continues to shift toward a more sedentary lifestyle, we need to find ways to stay active and fit. Getting a gym membership is the default answer to this problem, but this option comes with a few problems. You have to pack a gym bag, drive to the gym, work out in front of strangers, and wait for the equipment you need to be available. Instead of dealing with these stresses, lots of people opt for a home gym. However, home gyms can get pricey if you’re not careful. Thankfully, there are a few ideas to keep the cost of a home gym reasonable.

Start Small

One big mistake people make when getting into fitness is making too big of an investment too fast. To test the waters and make sure you’re committed, start with some smaller investments like a stability ball and resistance bands. You can get both for about $30 and there are so many workouts you can do with these two items. Once you’ve mastered the basics with these two, you can graduate to bigger equipment

Versatility is Key

When putting together a home gym, space can be just as limited as cash. To stretch both as far as possible, look for pieces that have multiple uses. An adjustable workbench can be used for a wide variety of exercises, and adjustable dumbbells are a great money and cost saver.

Their Failure is Your Savings

Lots of people hop on the fitness wagon only to fall off shortly after. While this is an unfortunate cliché, it can be your opportunity to save some serious coin. When people get really excited about a new fitness plan, they’ll go out and buy lots of fancy new equipment, and when they give up, they sell that new fancy equipment at a fraction of the cost. This lets you snatch up perfectly good equipment without having to break the bank. Craigslist, garage sales, Facebook Marketplace, and eBay are all great places to scour for used fitness equipment.

Starting a home gym doesn’t have to require a second mortgage. With a few creative ideas, you can get in shape without your wallet loosing too much weight.

To take the stress out of moving and give you some guidelines for what you should be doing and when to do it, we created a 5-week countdown you can follow. Sometimes you won’t have the luxury of 5 weeks before you move, so feel free to adapt this countdown to whatever timeline you’re working with.

Five Weeks Out 

• Take inventory of everything that you’ll need to move and decide what you want to sell, donate, or throw away.
• Decide if you want to move by yourself or hire a moving company.
• Start collecting and buying boxes, and get labels for the boxes.
• Start packing items you don’t need between now and the move day.

Four Weeks Out

• Have the garage sale to sell any unwanted items.
• Drop off any items that didn’t sell to your chosen donation center.

Three Weeks Out

• Find out how to change over bills and transfer services.
  • This should include TV, the internet, utilities, and any other bills that are mailed to your current home.
• Clean out the attic, shed, garage, and other places you use as storage.
• If you’re not using professional movers, contact friends and family to see if they’re available and willing to help you move.

Two Weeks Out

• Create a packing plan that outlines which boxes and furniture will go on the truck first.
• Make a travel kit with essential items like keys, toiletries, and first aid.

One Week Out

• Pack items you don’t need between now and the move day, which should be most of the house.
• Start labeling boxes so everyone knows where to put each box once you get to the new home.
• Make sure you have enough prescription medication and set up a new pharmacy close to your new home.
• Backup computers on an external hard drive or cloud storage in case they get damaged in the move.

Buying a new construction home can make calculating the property tax a bit difficult because there’s no historical data to go off. So how can homeowners know how much money to budget for property tax? Thankfully, there are a few ways to do this.

Talk with the Assessor 

A tax assessor will come to the property as part of their tax assessment. They’ll look at the condition of your property and the properties surrounding yours to make their decision. They also look at what your neighbors and other people in your general area are currently paying in taxes. Being at the property at the time of the assessment and getting some face time with the assessor can give you an indication of what the final number might look like.

Do Some Research

Your property tax will likely be pretty similar to your neighbors, if you have any, and other homeowners in your city. See what other nearby homeowners are paying in property tax to get a general range of taxes that might be applied to your home.

Use Some Tools

If all else fails, there are some online tools that will give you an idea of what your property tax will be. A great one to use is SmartAsset.com. Sites like this can only give you a rough idea, so don’t expect to get the exact number you’ll end up paying. However, you can typically get a pretty close guess using this free resource.

Ask for a Reassessment

If the bill comes in the mail and it’s more than you were expecting, you can ask the city to reassess your property. However, it’s not a good idea to ask for this reassessment just because you want to lower your bills. It is possible the assessor decides to raise your taxes after the assessment, so you need to have logical reasoning behind your request.

Let’s face it, moving isn’t fun. Having to pack up everything you own and load it on a truck isn’t how anyone wants to spend a Saturday. Thankfully, it’s 2017 and there are plenty of helpful moving apps.

MyMove 

If you’re hiring professional help to make the move, MyMove can be a great resource for you. This app offers a crash course in creating an efficient moving process, including how to get organized. However, the main focus of this app is to be a hub of reviews of local moving companies. You’ll get access to reviews from past clients and other data-driven metrics you can use to find the right movers.

MoveAdvisor

This app is great for anyone who wants to take the guesswork out of moving. MoveAdvisor creates a custom moving timeline that gives you week by week reminders so you stay on track instead of scrambling to pack the night before. In addition to the timeline, MoveAdvisor will also calculate the number of boxes and packing blankets you’ll need based on the amount of stuff you have.

Sortly

One of the biggest frustrations involved in moving is trying to find everything once you unload the truck at your new home. It’s rare to get all the boxes opened and the contents unloaded the first day, or even the first month. This inevitably leads to living out of boxes and slowly unloading as you need something out of the box. So how do you remember what’s in each box? Sortly helps you categorize each box and note what’s inside. When you need to find the pasta fork, you can pull up the app and instantly know which box to open.

These are just a few of the moving apps that are available to you. If you know of any other apps that make moving easier, drop a comment below and let us know!

To find the right home builder you need to ask the right questions. If it’s your first time working with a home builder, it’s hard to know what criteria are important and what questions to ask. No matter if it’s your first or third time building a custom home, you should ask the following questions anytime you work with a home builder you’ve never worked with before.

How Long Have You Been in Business?

Experience is incredibly important in the home building industry. There’s plenty of room for error if a builder hasn’t been around long enough to know better. Perry Hood Properties has been building homes in the Tulsa area since 1981, and our experience is unmatched.

Can I See Your Portfolio?

Home builders might specialize in a certain style of home. If this is the case, make sure the style of homes they commonly build matches your desired style of home. If you’re looking for an ultra-sleek modern home, and the builder primarily builds rustic farmhouse homes they might not be the best fit.

How Many Options Do I Get? 

Building a custom home isn’t much fun if you can’t make the home very custom. Different home builders will give you different levels of customization. Some might only let you pick the paint color and cabinets, but others will let you design a custom floor plan.

Which Subcontractors Do You Work With?

If a home builder doesn’t do all the construction with an in-house team, ask which sub-contractors they use to build the home. Since these subcontractors will have a large impact on the overall quality of the home construction, you’ll want to make sure all the subcontractors are up to par.

Do You Have Good Customer Ratings?

Ask to see some testimonials from previous customers and see what they thought of the experience. You’ll obviously want to see how they like living in the home, but it’s also a good idea to see how they enjoyed the building process. There are a lot of moving parts when building a home, and the home builder needs to facilitate a smooth building process for the homeowner.

Throwing a housewarming party is a great way to show off your new home and enjoy some quality time with your close friends. There are a few different ways you can throw a housewarming party, but the main goal should always be to have fun in your new home! Some homeowners wait to throw the party until they’re all moved in and have everything unloaded, but others use the party to get free labor from friends. If the second option sounds good, try throwing a paint party or yardwork bash.

Paint Party 

The first item on a new homeowner’s to-do list is often painting a few rooms. To help get the job done fast, invite your friends over to have a paint party. If you supply the food and a few drinks, friends are always willing to help out. To keep things fun and avoid slowdowns, have all the supplies laid out and try to get the taping done before everyone arrives.

Yardwork Bash

When people sell a home, the yard can sometimes suffer. To whip the yard back into shape, get all your friends over, have a cookout, and pull some weeds. Make sure to pick a day with some nice weather, and you’ll have the yard of the month in no time.

If you bought a new home and you don’t need help getting it ready, have a party once you get settled in. To give your guest some direction for gift giving, give your party a theme. You can ask guests to help you stock the bar, pantry, or flower bed.

Stock the Bar

Guests can bring their favorite bottle of wine or some other commonly used bar supplies like soda water and bitters. No need for top-shelf stuff, but having a good supply of the staples is always nice.

Stock the Pantry

If the hard stuff isn’t for you, tell your guests to head to the baking aisle. A bag of flour or sugar, maybe some vanilla extract or baking soda will all eventually get used, so you might as well stock up. Since none of these options cost more than $10, it’s a great budget-friendly option.

Stock the Flowerbed

For those moving during the Spring or Summer, asking friends to bring some flowers, seeds, or flower pots is an easy way to fill your flowerbeds. You’ll need to let your guests know what kind of sun your flowerbeds get, so they know what kind of flowers to bring. Not only is this a cheap gift, but it’ll remind you of all your friends every time you look at your flowerbed.

Once you decide you want to build a custom home it can be hard to know who to call first. Do you call the city, an architect, or a builder? A lot of people think you need to have the lot purchased and the plans drawn up before they start working with a custom home builder. However, this isn’t really necessary.

While it’s perfectly fine if you have all the plans drawn up before calling us, we’re happy to assist in this process and help you avoid some common problems you might not be aware of. After building custom homes for more than 30 years, we know how to thoroughly troubleshoot new home projects to make sure your dream can be turned into a reality. To do this, we discuss the following options with any prospective client.

Location– The first thing to think about is where you want to build. We have lots of options in different neighborhoods all around the greater Tulsa area, with varying degrees of neighborhood amenities. Since we know schools are so important, we can help you find the right lot in your preferred school district.

Lot Size– Once you know the general area you want to build, we’ll help figure out how big of a lot you’ll need. Obviously, we’ll want to know the square footage and footprint of the home you want to build, but we’ll also want to know how big of a yard you’re wanting.

Blueprints– Now that the preliminary work is out of the way, we can start putting pen to paper and creating your home. We have a great network of architects that can turn your napkin sketches and ideas into real plans.

During all three steps, we’ll be by your side to help you think through any problems that might come up. Planning to build a home isn’t easy, so having an experienced home builder to bounce ideas off will be a huge help. Again, if you have plans ready to go, great! But if you’re just in the idea stage, we’re here to help.