The rent rut, not liking it but how to climb out of it?
It can become a deep groove with steep sides. Is the curse of those that want to climb up and out into the ranks of successful first time home buyers for a Maine house.
Paying too much for rent, the extras you shell out in a less than perfect property unit means it is hard to put together the nest egg.
Which is the fuel to begin the process of the shift from renting to owning. For the key to the first time home buyer’s home sweet home. A starter home on the real estate dart board because like a car, everything in life, you work your way up in small rural Maine.
I am living proof of how great the Maine State Housing First Time Home Buyer’s Program really is for securing a home loan mortgage.
But I hear it daily. The renter who says they can more than afford the monthly house payments on this, that property listing. But a bank says differently because their debt ratios are too high.
The renter figures “I am paying more than the house payment now and am not under water, can pay my bills every thirty days. So I should be in the front of the line to buy that first house”.
But the home loan mortgage underwriter guidelines says no dice, denies the home lending request until a lot of little things change.
Too much going out, none put away to pay those closing costs or even consider having a sizable down payment to wheel and deal with to get a mortgage approval for a Maine home loan.
The other problem is how easy it is to sign up for a new credit card and get a big discount off your first purchase using the plastic.
And for a car loan, easy peasy. Just sign here and drive off the lot. With a home loan, it is a little more involved, the stakes are higher and they can not tow truck your home like a car that suddenly is not being paid for and has to be dragged back to the car lot.
Get bank approved for a first time or any home loan.
Be glad it is not just the days of one flavor of house lending. The kind where you were asked, how bad do you really want a home loan, to eventually own a house in Maine? 
Squirreling away twenty five percent of the house price for a down payment or keep renting.
With nothing to show for it all but the rent receipts.
Help getting a home loan for your first house.
Sometimes owner financing a home is possible but it happens more times with land loans and seller carried mortgages. No bank involved and payments, conditions for the loan hammered out in custom made fashion so both buyer and seller have a good taste in their mouth. Because they are partners of sorts in the let’s make a land deal.
Rising home prices happen but in rural Maine, the dial swings either way far less.
Steady as she goes. And if the interest rates hike, the sales prices written on the tags hanging off the homes deflate as time on the market make listing price adjustments in order.
A smart real estate home seller marks the price down with the guidance of a real estate professional who studies the current market conditions. That seller does not keep his price locked solid and waiting for one brave soul to make an offer. 
The adjusted listing price makes the buyers, all of them take notice and good things to happen sooner rather than later. Instead of not at all.
The object is to have a large, healthy inventory of homes of all prices, types and locations in a small rural market. Priced fairly means the same place won’t be on the market four years from now.
Shelf life and real estate mold are real conditions.
Long on the market listings look tired, ragged, black and blue and develop ten foot pole marks in the minds of buyers who wonder why they are hanging around and won’t go away.
Selection is everything and like cars that don’t just come in black colors only, the public wants and will exercise their desire to have a choice. To fit the best real estate offering for their unique set of needs and long list of gotta have, don’t want in whatever they finally select for a property listing to buy. And lead to the clear to close instructions from the underwriters to the real estate lawyers or title company wrapping up the deal and recording the deed in the local registry.
The problems stalling a purchase of that first home often is excessive student loan debt, little or no credit established and zip for funds for down payment because the home buyer wannabe is shelling out way too much for rent.
Renting costs work against the extra umph needed to make the jump into exciting but scary at the same time obligation of home ownership. And paying off a thirty year or less loan that you told the lawyer and banker was your free act and deed. To enter into the financial obligation to leave the rent rut and being paying off your four walls, a floor and a roof. 
Do you want to be a homeowner?
How badly do you want it and will you divert some of the everyday spending loose as a goose expenditures to get out of the rent rut and into your first home?
Ready to take the leap, jump in with all feet and to commit to a Maine home loan?
Whatever it takes, you are that fierce, passionate and can taste it? Let’s put our heads together, figure out a way if you are that serious.
Is there a family member willing to help co-borrow or a seller anxious to get the house show over? That will pitch back some of the proceeds as seed money to sponsor the buyer in the home sale?
Here to help with your first time home or whatever type of property listing you are thinking makes sense. Help for buyers and sellers of Maine real estate when the time is right.
And just browsing? And not ready to whip out the wallet to give us a deposit on a place and sign a purchase and sale agreement today? That is just fine and you don’t have to be all approved, ready to buy today.
We take you serious and listen intently to provide answers to your property listing questions.
And those about the process, how some people do it and the avenues available to make the best decision when the time is right.
MOOERS REALTY, your little red hen, will be ready when you are and in the mean time are here for the all important “home work” that goes into getting ready to buy your first house in Maine.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |
MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Mane 04730
