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    How to Buy a Home
    How to Buy a Home
    How to Buy a Home
    Ebook209 pages2 hours

    How to Buy a Home

    By Luis Cortes

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    About this ebook

    It's hard to think about buying a home. Where do you begin? How do you know if you're ready? What forms must you fill out? How can you avoid being taken advantage of? You might even feel that owning a home is so far beyond your means that it's unattainable. Purchasing a home is easier than you think.

    The Reverend Luis Cortés Jr. guides you through this complicated process and shows you how to turn your dream into a reality. The home-buying experience can be difficult, but a house provides more than just a roof over your head. It is an investment that promotes stability, enhances your well-being, and empowers you. Attaining all of this is simple. All it takes is learning the process, developing a plan, setting a goal, and working toward it. The Reverend Luis Cortés Jr. shows you how.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtria Books
    Release dateNov 1, 2007
    ISBN9780743299930
    How to Buy a Home
    Author

    Luis Cortes

    The Reverend Luis Cortés Jr. is the president and CEO of Esperanza USA, the largest Hispanic faith-based community-development corporation in the country. In January 2005, he was featured as one of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Evangelicals."

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      Book preview

      How to Buy a Home - Luis Cortes

      Introduction

      It is the dream of thousands of Americans. To own the house that they call their home, to be able to go to sleep knowing and feeling a sense of permanence in their lives. Your dream of owning a home can come true! It may take hard work. You must learn about buying and owning a house. You may have to change some spending habits. This book will help you along the way to understand the process of buying a house:

      It will help you think about why you want to own a house;

      It will help you know if you are ready to own a house;

      It will help you plan for buying a house;

      It will help you understand the basic steps of purchasing a house;

      It will help you learn about the people you will work with in buying a house;

      It will help you understand the language used by the banks and others who will work with you;

      It will give you the needed practice to fill out important forms;

      It will help you to keep your house once you buy it.

      This book also contains samples of the documents you will need to complete and sign during the home-buying process; a list of important words you will hear, read, and use; and a list of other materials you can read to better understand the home-buying process. We will also provide you with a special code by which you can get more free information at our website.

      Many people may tell you that buying a house is not possible; that owning a house is out of reach. But I have seen many who saw that turn around, and after years of saving they reached their home-ownership goal. How? They learned the process, developed a plan, set a goal, and worked toward it. You, too, can try, and at each step in the process of buying a home, you can open this book again and again to keep learning.

      One challenge of home ownership is a financial one. Another is turning your house into a home. This book will also touch on these subjects, and the good news is that if you have to defer your home-ownership goal because you need a long-term savings plan, you can still start making a home immediately. We will explore some of the ways we can use to make any place we find into a home for ourselves and our family. The American dream of house, family, and future can be yours! I pray that this book will be a way to whet your appetite for the process of buying a house and give the reasons why buying a house and turning it into a home will be a blessing to you and your loved ones.

      I wish you success in reaching your dream of owning a home. With God’s help and some hard work, you will be successful!

      The Reverend Luis Cortés Jr.

      How to Buy a Home

      How to Buy a Home

      1

      Buying a House and

      Making a Home

      Making a House into a Home

      Anyone who hears and obeys these teachings of mine is like a wise person who built a house on solid rock. Rain poured down, rivers flooded, and winds beat against that house. But it did not fall, because it was built on solid rock. Anyone who hears my teachings and doesn’t obey them is like a foolish person who built a house on sand. The rain poured down, the rivers flooded, and the winds blew and beat against that house. Finally, it fell with a crash.

      MATTHEW 7:24-27 CEV

      The above scripture is obvious to us: if we build upon a rock, a strong foundation, the house will survive hard times. The purchase of a house does not create a home; in fact, a home is not predicated by ownership of property but by a mind-set that creates the temperamental and environmental conditions, thereby creating a physical place that has deep spiritual significance. A home radiates security, love, nurture, and a connectedness among all who live in it and those who enter its doors. How then can we achieve the transformation of a house to a home? Why would we want to create it? How can we build a solid foundation for our family?

      A house that becomes a home creates stability for your family. Those who own homes are more likely to better adapt to American aspirations and values.

      A study by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development put it this way:

      The desire for home ownership is deeply rooted in the American psyche. Owning a home embodies the promise of individual autonomy and of material and spiritual well-being that many people sought in coming to this country. In addition to its functional importance and economic value, home ownership has traditionally conveyed social status and political standing. It is even thought to promote thrift, stability, neighborliness, and other individual and civic virtues.

      Home Ownership Creates Wealth

      Purchasing a home is the largest investment that most families will ever make. It is in effect a forced savings plan in that part of your mortgage payments is retained as equity in your house. As long as the value of the home does not erode, there is a long-term wealth benefit. As a general trend, owning a home is a good long-term investment. Home ownership has become a critical factor in moving up the economic ladder as home equity is the largest single source of household wealth for most Americans. For homeowners, almost 60 percent of their wealth is in the form of home equity. For minority homeowners, home equity is an even more important component of wealth, representing more than three-fourths of their median net wealth. Homeowners also enjoy important tax advantages in the value and distribution of federal tax preferences for home ownership, such as the deducibility of property taxes and mortgage interest and the onetime exclusion of capital gains.

      Home Ownership Creates Personal Well-being

      Home ownership is a commonly recognized symbol of social status and an important goal for many Americans. It improves our selfesteem and life satisfaction. Owning a home is a widely shared and cherished goal and an expectation and hope of most Americans. Many scholars have reasoned that its attainment tends to increase the homeowner’s contentment with life. It is often argued that home ownership enhances the homeowner’s sense of control over his or her life and environment by offering greater privacy and protection. Empowerment comes from the ability to own, change, and control one’s environment, to be able to paint, change fixtures, and change the inside or outside of your house. Your living space will better support your lifestyle and may increase your satisfaction with your house and life. To know that one will not have to negotiate new leases with their unpredictability is also a part of both financial and geographic control that promotes well being. Homeowners control who comes into their house. The social status and freedom of home ownership can lead to higher levels of self-esteem and a belief in the greater control over life in general.

      Home Ownership Creates a Healthier Family

      Psychologically we have already noted that the self-esteem of homeowners is higher than those who don’t own their own homes. Studies attribute this to three underlying factors: first, the purchase of a home leads to others holding us in high regard; second, as homeowners we understand ourselves as doing better; and third, we see ourselves as successful in accomplishing goals, our purchase being evidence of our competence. The vast majority of home buyers have stated that being a homeowner makes them feel better about themselves. Employed homeowners report significantly less economic strain, depression, and problematic alcohol use than do renters. Home ownership contributes both to psychological health and physical health. Homeowners do not have to deal with landlords who provide inadequate heating and cooling, and they also suffer less of the infestation of bugs and rodents that can lead to respiratory and other illnesses. Homeowners also score higher on general health questionnaires and health indicators.

      Home Ownership Creates a Better Educational Environment for Your Children

      There seems to be no better reason for homeownership than what studies tell us regarding our children. Homeowners tend to create a higher quality home environment for children. Children are better supported in their physical, emotional, and learning development. Children will perform better in mathematics and reading tests; will be less likely to drop out of high school, to have children as teenagers, or to be arrested prior to age eighteen. In other words, children who live in their own homes tend to do better in school and are less likely to participate in behaviors that are detrimental to their future development. Children of homeowners tend to become homeowners themselves. Doing better in school and getting in less trouble leads to increased earnings and the acquisition of a home.

      Home Ownership Creates More Stability in the Neighborhood

      Family stability contributes to and is enhanced by the stability that home ownership provides to the neighborhood. We already noted that there will be less delinquency among the youth, and studies show that there is less addiction to alcohol or drugs by adults. One of the most persistent claims made for home ownership is that owners have a greater financial and emotional investment in their neighborhood and are more likely to maintain and improve their neighborhood. Homeowners have lower residential turnover as home buying is viewed as signifying a family’s commitment to remain in the community. This commitment of home buyers also affects rental residents: they are also less likely to move away from the neighborhood. One of the reasons for this is that homeowners are more likely than absentee landlords or their renters to maintain and improve their properties. Homeowners spent more on maintenance, were less likely to defer repairs, and reported fewer housing problems. Home ownership creates a higher level of neighboring: the forming of neighborhood or block associations that lead to better understanding of political and local neighborhood leadership. Items of mutual interest, such as police, fire, and school needs, are shared by neighbors. Neighborhood community building leads to the development of crime prevention programs, such as a neighborhood watch. Even when cooperating to stop illegal activity, home-owning neighbors are more likely to look out for each other.

      Now we have discovered many of the reasons we should strive to be a homeowner. Home ownership can help us create: wealth, personal well-being, a healthier family environment, better educational achievement by our children, and greater family and neighborhood stability. If you can afford to purchase a home you should consider it.

      We started this chapter with a sacred scripture, a parable that forcefully illustrates a single idea. This story is about two persons, each building a house. One uses a rock as a foundation; the other uses sand. A wise person, we are told, builds on a secure foundation; a foolish person gives no thought to the foundation. The parable conveys to us that we have to prepare for hard times and that hard times will come to all of us. Rain, floods, and wind will come into our lives in many different forms and venues. Clearly, the parable shares with us the need for a strong foundation to face the storms of life. These

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