Developing a Home Buying Strategy #263

a home. I think it's something that people don't consider enough and it can leave you over pain right for the most expensive purchase you'll ever make in your life. So there's an important topic for us to tackle. Absolutely. Man, I know a lot of what we're going to talk about in this episode. I never even can ordered back when Kate and I bought our first house over ten years ago, and so I wish that we had been challenged in the way that we are going to challenge

our listeners today. So I'm excited to get to that, man. But first, I've got a quick little frugal or cheap for you. How do you feel about keeping something that you got on sale if it doesn't fit perfect perfectly well, Because here I'll give you a little bit of backround while you consider. I got a nice jackets on sale from a website that sells discounted outdoor clothing, and it's a really nice jacket, and it was on tremendous sale, and these kind of jackets never go on sale by

this particular company. It was over off, and so I pounced. I thought, man, that's a great looking jacket. But the thing is, it doesn't fit me the way I wished it would fit me, and so that bums me out. But I'm a little bit torn because I did get such a good deal on it. So what are your thoughts if I were to keep this jacket even though it doesn't fit me so well? In my being cheap? I think it's a cheap move. And and here's why

I've completely changed my tune on this. I used to be all about paying a rock bottom price and if it was something that I got, if it was I think we've talked about this before. If it was like an eleven dollar pair jeans, I'm gonna keep it, but I'm not gonna wear them. And they just sit in my drawer and you can't wash them. Otherwise they dissolve exactly.

So I think sometimes buying something on sale, getting a great deal, I used to hold that in like the highest esteem, and and then that just led to clutter in my house and in my life. And so yeah, I would recommend uh sending back, either getting a size that fits you better, or finding just another jacket, maybe that that you're actually gonna wear. I know, at least for me, if it doesn't fit me, well, I'm not gonna wear it, And so it's a complete waste of money.

Maybe some people don't care as much about the fit and they're like, oh, it's a little bag, who cares. I'm gonna wear it anyway. But but for me, it's like, man, if it doesn't fit me, well, I'm not wearing it. Yeah.

I wonder if that's because you and I are both like two skinny guys, and so it really is important to me as well, Like I would rather wear a shirt that I am less excited about wearing from like a color or graphic or material stepoint pink with unicorns on it takes me really well, I'm gonna wear it. So I kind of agree with you. I'm of the mindset of sending it back because it does in my mind depending on the product. If it's something that's I

don't care much about. So for instance, I recently bought like a bike light. I just picked one up that was really cheap that had really great reviews. Like I don't care about the brand. I don't care what other features it has. It just needs to be able to light up on the front, you know, for the handlebars and the little red light on the back. It just needs to blink, Like I really do not care. Uh, And you might think that I would care because it's

bike related. As long as the cars can see you and you can see the road exactly when it comes to fit, I wanted to to sit a certain way and especially to man like in the winter, I wear jackets basically all the time, Like I just wear like a T shirt and I wear a jacket over and so basically that's like my all time shirt, Like it's

what people see. And so in that case, I'm willing to pay a little bit more to have something that I am excited to wear, not something that I you know, I am not excited to wear, or even worst case scenario, like you said, it just sits around ends up cluttering your house and then you end up selling it for you know, like ten bucks at the yard sale. Yeah, and I think sometimes, I don't know, maybe some people replace their jacket every winter every season. No, no, I'm

talking five ten years baby, right. I know you're not, but I'm sure some people do that. Right. But but you and I especially, we live in Atlanta, so like the winner is not that cold, pretty mild, you know, we can we can if we find the right jacket that looks good, and then we can wear the that same jacket for yeah, ten years. I know I have most of the jackets I own, I've owned for about a decade, and you know, I probably only have two or three because again, it doesn't get super cold down here.

But that's just another factor. The more that you love that jacket, you're drawn to it it fits well, Uh, it doesn't matter even if you didn't get it on at off sale. If you're gonna get more years out of it and you're gonna enjoy wearing it, then I think that's an important consideration. Nice. I'm glad we are on the same page. I've got it right here in the back of my chair. Do you notice I was trying it out here in the office to see how how it felt and whatnot. But I don't don't cut

the tags office yet. All right, let's go ahead and introduce our beer for this episode. We are drinking a Labonte with figs and this is a beer by Wicked Wheat. This is a great brewery out of Asheville, North Carolina, Beer City, USA. I'm looking forward to sharing this one with you, buddy, and talking about it at the end of the episode. Labonte sounds fran labonte. It is all right, yeah, so you're saying that word. Yeah, right, it's labonte. It's cute.

All right, Let's get onto the subject at Handmatt. We're talking about developing a home buying strategy. And it's interesting because millennials, like they've often been considered to be behind the curve when it comes to home buying. But now that generation, the generation of millennials, the people in their twenties and up to what eight uh, those people are starting to get into the idea of homeownership in a meaningful way. And the average price of a new home

it now exceeds thousand dollars. Crazy. Yeah, we recently just crossed that line. There are lots of things to consider in order to make a wise purchase, and at the same time, interest rates are at all time lows. That creates this feeling I think for a lot of people like you have to move quickly before those rates start to creep back up. But if you move too quickly,

you can make some missteps. So let's talk about the home buying process today, Matt, and what it looks like to have a solid strategy in place so that our list seners can make a smart purchase, one that's going to serve them well for years to come, and not a hasty purchase that's still conceived. Kind of like your jacket. It wasn't hasty, it was well thought out, you know, and I pounced on the sale. But sometimes you can't

tell the fit until you get it in personally. I felt the need to throw that in there, ruffle my feathers a little bit. Uh. And So another reason that home buying right, why this is so important to get right, is that because once typical Americans purchased their first home, a large portion of their wealth is instantly tied up in that home right nearly, and as folks get older,

that percentage only increases. Households where folks are older than seventy five have nearly half of their wealth as equity in their primary residence. Now, this isn't necessarily a good thing because it's tricky, you know, to survive off of your home equity when you retire. You can't eat your house unless you're a gingerbread man. I guess, yeah, but then or with a helock. But he likes take time.

And as we've seen now that they're not readily available, a lot of banks and credit unions are not offering them. And even then you're paying money to access that that wealth, it's tied up. Yeah. Yeah, And so whether we like it or not, though, that's the reality for most folks. But by developing a strategy for your home purchase, our goal is that you'll you'll save a good bit of money on that purchase, you know, along the way, and then hopefully too, you might even consider spending less on

your house to begin with. So let's go ahead and get into some of the most important considerations that we're gonna talk about today. Yeah, part of this really involves asking yourself a few incredibly important questions, right, And the first one that you should be asking is should I even be buying a home? Or does renting serve me better. It's so important to note that buying isn't necessarily the best option for everyone, and in fact, it's not the

best option for a decent swath of the population. Renting can be a better move for people of all stages, depending on how long you plan to live in that location and your overall money goals. So part of your strategy should involve a little thinking about why you're wanting to buy a home. Is it because your friends have started buying homes? That can be a factor for a lot of people, but it's important not to base your decision on your peers. It's a personal decision that is

going to affect you for years to come. Right at the same time, a home can be an incredible place to feel settled in a community or to raise a family, But if you can't get rid of that home because you were maybe a little shortsighted on the front end, it can feel like a burden that you can't get rid of. And that's why it's important to know that you're ready to be planted in a place for a

while before you're making that purchase. Otherwise, buying that home the day of closing it can be a joyous occasion. The day that you list it, and the months that it might be on the market while you're trying to sell it and not lose money can be incredibly frustrating. Yeah, man, And so you mentioned some of those personal lifestyle considerations, right, But then of course there's also the financial considerations as well.

You know, you mentioned it being a burden. It's a burden because financially speaking, you're either going to take a loss, like you said, when when it when it comes time to sell it, or if you can't afford it um if you have a boatload of other debts. Maybe if you have poor credit, and if you live in an expense of market, then buying a house might be a bad decision for you. The same goes to if your employment is a bit tenuous. You know, we've seen this

past year. Sometimes it's not even about how great of an employee you are, but there are larger issues at play, which then in turn impacts your industry and then your company. Where you feel the effects of something like a pandemic, it can be tough, you know, especially for a single individual with just one source of income, to have solid

financial footing. And so if that's you, if you're not in a solid position, you might be better off running matt And sometimes that doesn't necessarily mean you'll never own a home. That's just right for the time being, right, And I know there are a lot of people who that's a goal, that's a dream, that's an aspiration, and

that's great. But if your financial circumstances currently dictate that it's not the smartest move for you, you don't want to buy a home at the wrong time, then it becomes again, like we were saying, like this this plague on your personal finances and a source of frustration instead of that source of joy. So again, it doesn't mean that it's not a possibility at some point. It just means that it's not a great idea right now. Yeah,

that's right, man. And so we wanted to mention that that renting might be a good option before we dive into you know, all this home purchasing talk. But that's what we're gonna get into next. Specifically, we're gonna talk about, you know, sort of an overarching strategy for for buying a home that will have a dramatic impact on your ability to grow your wealth. And so we're gonna get to that right after the break. All right, we're back

from the break. Let's keep talking about developing that home buying strategy, Matt. And and again there's a few important questions we talked about. One isn't even the right time to buy home. But the next most important question for anybody to ask themselves when they're thinking about buying home

is what's the purpose of this home? Right? What's the core to how you're approaching purchasing a home, Like if you're going to be house hacking or if you're buying a multifamily property, there's a different a set of circumstances that you need to consider versus buying a single family residence. And so yeah, that that overarching question of what's the purpose of this house is an important one. It can significantly change how you approach purchasing that home, Right, Matt.

We've talked about house hacking on the show a good bit and you know what, maybe we'll do it more in the future. I'm sure that's because the ability that we have to significantly reduce the cost of our housing, which is of course the largest expense many of us

face across the board, it's unmatched. Right. If we can find a way to use our home and profit from it, or at least drastically lower the costs of our own housing by renting out a room or having a multifamily home where other tenants essentially pay the mortgage for us, that's gonna change the equation on our buying strategy, right. And most folks out there, they just don't really consider house hacking or moving out and renting out their old place.

But that's something that that we think is important to challenge people to at least consider because it has a mans have impact on the strategy, but also a massive impact on your ability to grow your net worth over time. If you can choose house hacking as opposed to the traditional way of buying a home, you're gonna completely alter your financial future. Yeah, and just to clarify, I mean, like you said, you like, house hacking can be as

simple literally as just having roommates, right. It doesn't have to be this overly complicated thing, but it can be. Right, if you want to buy a quadplex where you are only living in a single unit, maybe the smallest unit there is in that quadplex, and then you're running out the other three units and then you're cash fling every single month. Or maybe even more complicated is say adding onto your house like we did and finishing out a basement that you plan to list on Airbnb. There's a

wide spectrum of what house hacking could look like. In our book, every single one of those is a type of house hacking, and so that's what we are referring to when we are talking about house hacking. Yeah, Matt. And another example, like when I bought my first and second house, each one of those purchases was done with the intention of becoming a rental property in the future, and that changed the parameters of what I was looking for.

I was looking more at multifamily properties and I had like a hard cap on the price I was willing to pay for a single family home. Both homes that we ended up purchasing a couple of years apart from each other ended up being single family homes and they've

been great. But knowing the purpose behind the home I was looking for before we began our search and even started making offers was crucial to the path that we ended up taking, because if I wasn't ultimately thinking with a future investment in mind, the homes I'm actually pursuing probably would have cost more and wouldn't have been nearly as good of a fit for an investment or rental property. So yeah, that's definitely an important thing to keep in mind.

What's going to be the current and what's going to be the potential future use of this home in your life. It also takes the pressure off of that first house perhaps being like the perfect house, you know, like it doesn't have to be a perfect fit. It doesn't have to be your dream house. Basically, if you can look at it and say, hey, this is a house I can see myself in for the next couple of years, and the numbers make sense, it kind of comes down

to the numbers at that point. It's more of a math equation versus could I see myself here for the next ten twenty years. Can I seem myself raising a family in this house? Probably not, you know, like, if you can happen to find a house that can evolve with you, uh, I think that's amazing, Like that's great.

But at the same time, I think there can be so much pressure on individuals finding the perfect house for their very first house purchase, and like you mentioned, I think that can cause a lot of folks to to overpay maybe and and even over extend themselves to choose something that's a little bit maybe beyond their reach. And so you know, another question too for folks to consider is what's your timeline? Second to what's your purpose behind

this house? This is probably the most important question you can ask, uh, And it's also a consideration that is impacted by whether or not you're planning on house hacking or not. So for example, if you're buying a to one and then you're planning maybe on having four kids in the next few years or in our case ten years, uh, you might not be there for very long and it may be an unwise purchase, unless again, you are planning to convert that house to a rental, which is actually

what we did. So when it comes to houses, kay, now we've only moved once. We moved from you know, one house to the house that we're in. Now you've moved twice. So you've got to convert two houses in Tormentos, we've only converted one. And so again that's something that's going to be significantly impacted depending on what it is that you're planning to do with that house when you're

ready to move on. Yeah, the timeline, Matt, is crucial, crucial, crucial for how to think about the home that you're buying. And I think a lot of people haven't thought through maybe how long they plan on living in that city, or whether that home is going to meet their needs for a number of years to come. They buy something because it fits their lifestyle right now, and when it comes to something like buying a home, because of the massive amount of transaction costs involved in that move, you

can't think like that. You can't afford to be shortsighted. So you have to ask yourself this question of what's your timeline. And let's say, Matt, somebody's in the army in their station somewhere for the next three years, but they have no idea where they're going to be after that, Like, buying a home doesn't make a whole lot of sense, uh, in particular financial sense for that person either. Right, it's important to think about some of the likely scenarios of

how long you're gonna own the home. But again, if you serve in the military and you're like, you know what, I'm totally cool being a long distance landlord, then maybe buying a home with that in mind makes a whole lot of sense. Right, If you're cool with that property becoming an investment property in the future, your personal timeline of how long you're going to live in the property

matters less. But at the same time, there are a whole lot of people that aren't interested in becoming landlords, and so your timeline and how long you're planning on living in the property is just of massive importance. Yeah, I've heard that the most unhappy landlords are the landlords by default. Yeah, it's a whether you're planning on your house being a personal residence only versus a house hack. That also has an impact on how much you need

to have saved up for a down payment. We're all about pushing people to have a down payment if it's for a personal residence, but you know what, we're okay with a smaller down payment. If you're buying the home partially as an investment property. You know, if your home will provide cash flow as a house hack, or you're looking to buy some multi family housing that will provide income, well, that threshold is less important. This is another instance where

you're basically looking at the numbs. If you can crunch the numbers and it makes sense if you're getting a good return on your investment versus what you'd be able to get in the market, then this becomes less of a personal kind of qualitative decision and it becomes more

of a numbers decision. Yeah, accelerating your savings for a down payment is huge when it comes to your strategy for buying a home, and Matt, for people out there listening who have been running for a number of years with the goal of owning a home, maybe in the back of their mind, maybe in the front of their mind, it's really really important to start saving up for that now and making it a major goal in your monthly budget.

But if that's kind of been on your radar but you haven't been able to save maybe even a dime towards that goal yet, then you know, we would say buying a home needs to be put off until you've been able to accrue at least a meaningful amount of savings towards the down payment. Right and in particular, Matt, you mentioned pushing people towards the number, that's not necessarily

a hard and fast thing. We think it works better for people for so many reasons, right, uh, to get to that market, it allows people to avoid p M. I can add quite a bit to your monthly payments, roughly one percent of the overall cost of the mortgage annually, and that's just a tough pill to swallow. And at the same time, you've got more more skin in the game. So we love the idea of pushing people to to have that much to put down because it's the smartest,

least risky way to go about it. And another thought as well is that you know, you might be able to afford the home today, right, but can you afford it over the long haul? Like that's the question you want to ask yourself, Like, are you buying too much house right now? If you'll be stretched every month to make the mortgage payment, it's not going to be worth it. And then additionally to you need a factor in the price of maintenance and upkeep into your life as well.

You know, a good rule of thumb for budgeting purposes is one percent of the purchase price of the home. So twollar home will likely need two thousand dollars annually on average, right some years is going to be even more than that, but some years it might be less. So after factoring all those costs in as well, you might be seeing yourself like renting for a couple more years. Like that sounds like the way to go, and so

start there. We want you to consider house hacking. We want that to be a challenge to you, and we hope you consider that. But regardless of if you're going to consider house hacking or not, if you're listening to this episode, you might be looking to purchase a home just for yourself as a primary residence. Either way, there are some important guidelines to follow and we'll get to

those right after the break. All right, we're back from the break and Matt hopefully we helped people refine their home buying strategy just a little bit, making sure they're not buying more house than they can afford, being sure they know their timeline. Things like that are so important before you pull the trigger on a home purchase. But now let's talk about a few of the really important things that people need to have in place as before they begin home shopping. And one of the most important

things is to have a really good credit score. And if you don't have one, you've got to work on improving it. Part of the home buying strategy involves making sure that that credit score is in great shape. But first you you kind of need to know what your credit score is, right, A lot of people out there listening might not know what their score is. And so, yeah, look at the section in your credit card bill where

they give you that info every month. And if you don't have access to your credit score there, check out a site like credit Scorecard or credit Karma. Both are awesome, and Credit Karma does this great job. Also, they've got a scorecard tool that gives you insight on how to improve that credit score. They'll say, you know what, in this area, you're getting an A over here you're getting

a C minus. And so that's the part of your credit score that you can attack the hardest in order to to boost that score, because your score is going to have such an impact on the loan terms you're gonna be able to get, and those loan terms are gonna have a direct reflection on your monthly payment, which influences your budget and and so yeah, it just goes on and on. You've gotta have a great credit score. You gotta be working on your credit score before you

start shopping for that house. Yeah, that's right, and and so if your your credit score is awful, we would recommend for folks to go back and check out episode one thirteen. That's where we talk about how to rebuild

a rough credit score. Uh, it's not always easy, you know, and it can take quite a bit of time, but that that hard work will pay off big time in the future as you will be able to qualify for the best mortgage terms and interest rates as well, and that can save you tens of thousands of dollars over the life of the loan. But like you know, like we're saying, it's gonna take a while. You can't instantly

flip the switch on your credit score. And so if a home purchases in your future, that's something that you're gonna want to start now, all right, Matt, you just mentioned getting the best mortgage terms and interest rates, and yeah, one of the next important things and having a solid homebuying strategy is is shopping around for the best financing.

Most people look at a ton of homes but really actually only apply for financing with one lender, like one bank or credit union, and then they stop there because they're like Okay, this person got back to me. Yeah, and yet what they don't realize is that there could be uh thousands of dollars in difference in closing costs, or you know, a half a percentage of difference in the interest rate you're being offered by different lenders. So it's really crucial to get that apples to apples comparison

from a a mom of three. Different lenders look to local credit unions and local banks in particular. Right, credit unions often offer the lowest rates and they can charge fewer fees for the loans that they're offering. Mortgage brokers are also a great place to turn because they can essentially shop with a bunch of different lenders for you all at one time with your information. So, yeah, reach

out to a mortgage broker as well. But yeah, shopping for financing is it just an incredibly crucial step in the home buying process. Yeah, mortgage brokers are great, and so are insurance brokers when it comes to ensuring that house. But we're not going to get into that this episode. Let's keep talking about financing. You know, it's also important to think about, you know, what type of loan that you're gonna be taking out. I'm sure a lot of

folks have heard of fifteen year thirty year mortgages. Maybe they've heard of f h A or arms as well. There are all sorts of options that you can choose from, but we are not fans of f h A loans, and almost never is an ARM ideal, especially in the current age of insanely low rates that we have right now, and so that's why we recommend for folks to consider

either a conventional fifteen or thirty year fixed rate mortgage. Yeah, there are all sorts of interesting mortgage products out there, but the two most basic are are the ones that are ultimately the best for most people, the fifteen and the thirty. Right, and Matt, let's talk about to the pre approval letter. As you're starting to shop for homes before you make your first offer, it's important to get pre approved from a lender before you start submitting those offers.

But here's the problem with the pre approval typically is that the bank or credit union sometimes might overestimate how much home you can afford. They're not necessarily thinking about what fits into your monthly budget and how much breathing room you're gonna need. Yeah, they're not looking out for your best interests necessarily, right, Yeah, they're just saying, oh, you know what, on paper, it looks like you could afford this much house. So let's say you're like pre

approved for a dollar mortgage from a lender. That doesn't mean that you should be buying a home that cost that much. I think that's like one common misstep map that people make when it comes to their home by strategy is they take that fixed number that a lender gave them as gold as their upper limit or the you know, the price of a home that they should be looking at. It's not terribly different from spending on your credit card up to the limit just because you can.

Right Instead, it's important to figure out what works in your monthly budget and don't be afraid to be conservative. Right Like, for me, Matt, I'm nervous about being house poor, and so I've always tried to buy cars or homes or anything like that just that's far under what I actually could afford because I want to prioritize saving and investing and also using extra money to do other other fun things as opposed to to socking it into a

home that's like a little on the expensive side. Yeah, I sort of see a pre approval letter almost as like the speedometer on your car, Like, just because it says it can do one forty like doesn't mean you should be doing them. You know, Like there's a limit that you should probably stay within. There's a legal limit, and there's not necessarily a financial limit that tells you what you should or shouldn't do, per se when it comes to the amount that you you know that you

can take out. But but yeah, just because you're pre approved a certain amount doesn't mean you should take it there. And so another question that's gonna come up to when you're talking with a lender, uh, that they're gonna start talking about your debt to income ratio. This also has a major impact on the strategy that you'll need to take. If you haven't saved enough money, you know, like that could derail your ability to buy a home, But your

outstanding debt could also do the same. So it's important to get focused on paying down your most egregious debts, in particular your credit card debt before you buy a home. Yeah, you might get some lender pushback as you're applying, and they might say your d t I is too high, well, that means that you have too many monthly debt obligations and so yeah, relative to your income exactly. So you've got to start paying some of those things off in

order to be able to then buy a home. And specifically when we talk about d t I, the goal should be to have one under thirty percent. They're helpful dt I calculators out there on the internet. Will will post a link to one in the show notes. But that's something that you can kind of know ahead of time before the lender gets back to you and says, actually, sorry, you have too much debt. You qualified for this alone. I think sometimes we have an internal gauge to a

certain extent of how bad our debt actually is. But actually seeing the number and a d t I calculator what your d t I percentage is, can really help you know, Okay, I got some work to do before before I keep going down this path. Or you know, actually, I'm I'm in a pretty good spot and I have a d t I that's that's healthy. So I can't

afford to buy a home right now. So every time you say d t I, I just keep thinking d t R do you remember having the d t R. And we've been married so long now, I almost forgot about the d t R. Yeah. Well, so when I was back in college I actually appreciated having the d t R because I just like clarity. I like to know what I'm working towards. If this isn't gonna work out, like I'm ready to move on to people know what the means that DTR is defind the relations. Everybody knows

what d just in case. I. I specifically remember having the d t R with Kate and it's just such a good moment of clarity. But yeah, sorry, a little tangent there. Every time you were saying d t I I was like, he's just saying d t R. But we're talking about money. We're talking about, you know, getting

qualified for a mortgage. Something else that can say. Or if you're like me, if you're self employed and you have been for the past twelve years of your life, be prepared to go through a more rigorous underwritting process, especially if you've been, you know, more recently self employed.

And so Kate and I we've been kind of transitioning away from photography lately, and because of that, our income has gone down a whole lot, and I very acutely felt the effects of that, not just in our decreased income a little bit, but in the ability to get some mortgages refined. You know, you and I we both have investment properties and with rates at all time loans, of course we're pouncing on those opportunities to get a

lower rate. Well, dude, when you know it, because our income has dropped, it dashed our hopes a little bit. It ruined the opportunity to take advantage of the deals right now, and so in our case, we weren't able to refy. And so that's definitely something to consider. You know, if you've had a corporate gig for you know, the past five years, and you're moving more towards independent work, where they're gonna want to see a couple of years worth of corporate taxes in order to consider the income

that you received from those side businesses as qualified income. Yeah, lenders love nine high people who collect a bi weekly paycheck. That's for sure, totally predictable, exactly, It's never been my life. Uh yeah. Another really really important thing, Matt, as we're getting close to the end of this one, is is finding a great real estate agent. That is such an important part of this entire process. Right, finding a seasoned agent can make all the difference when you're buying a home,

especially if you're a first time HomeBuyer. Matt, I remember being so green when I was shopping from my first home. I didn't really know what to look for, and I felt like my agent was a godsend like guiding me through the process. She had a couple of decades of experience and she was incredible. I feel like she really held my hand in the process. And there are probably a lot of other agents I could have gone with

who wouldn't have provided nearly that value. And now that I've been investing in real estate for a number of years going on a decade, my agent provides help in other ways, like being an expert negotiator. Now I don't need nearly the amount of hand holding that I used to need right when I was buying my first one. But it's important to make sure you do your due

diligence on the real estate agent front as well. Right, that solid agent makes a major difference not only in the price you pay, but whether or not you're even going to get the home that that you really want or not. Yeah, that's right, man. And so speaking of real estate agents, I know who your first realtor was

because I we used her one time. And my favorite story about you in that realtor is that, well, that was back in the day when you would ride around in the car with them and you know, you'd go to and see houses. I remember talking about one time how she dropped you off back at your apartment, I guess, and I think you responded with see you later, I love you. It sounds like something I would say, Do you remember that. I mean you're like, well, I mean, yeah,

you're great. But I think in your mind you had that like, oh, this is mom dropping me off. She was kind of like a second mom. Man. She's such a great agent. I stay in touch with her still a little bit. But it's great. Yeah. I love her, I got I'll be honest. I love her. She's great. She's the best. Yeah. Speaking of dtr Um and so, you know, there are lots of other things to consider when it comes to buying a home, like inspections, negotiating.

We just kind of mentioned that, but like, this isn't a comprehensive list per se, but you know, The biggest factor though that determines your home buying strategy is whether or not you're planning in the house ack or if you're going to convert that personal residence to our rental.

We feel that that can just have such an outsized impact on your ability to put yourself in a home that's going to treat you well down the road, because you know what, like it has converted from what a place that used to call home to something that is now generating income. It's now an investment, and so we want to make sure that folks are are going to just challenge that notion of of just purchasing a home for themselves and instead to consider some of those long

lasting implications as well. Yeah, and just the notion that putting as little down as you can put down and buying as much home as you can write like that, those are two of the biggest mistakes you can make, you know, in this home buying process. And so that's an important thing to realize as well, is it's important to be in a solid financial position before you even

go down this road. So to any of our listeners out there, who are you know, in the process of of getting ready to start shopping for home, or maybe you're in the middle of it right now and you're about to make an offer. Best of luck to you. I hope that this episode has been helpful so that you can navigate these waters well and by something that's going to be good for you and your family for for years to come. All right, Matt, you want to

get back to the beer real quick. Today on the show, we had a wicked weed Labonte And it's not just Labonte's Labonte with figs. So this is a type of sour that they make with like pear, with like some other fruit as well. But yeah, this is the fig variation. Reminds me of our fig tree that was in full bloom the summer. Dude, we got so many figs off that thing this year. But but what do you think about this beer man? You have so many figs, But did you make any beer with it? No, I'm a loser.

You're not a loser. You just you just don't make beer. Okay, So this beer man, in my opinion, it was aggressively tart. It was very acidic. But you know how I roll, I really enjoy that in a sour beer, and so this one didn't disappoint at all. I felt it did have a little bit of that fig flavor going on, not a whole lot of it, but something else I

feel like I picked up on. I don't know if I'm just imagining this, but as I finished it out, I feel like it would get sweeter, Like you drink it immediately and it feels really tart, really mouth puckering, but then the sweetness kind of rides out on the back end. It kind of lingers, And specifically it kind of made me think of like any sweetness, And I wonder if that's because I'm just thinking in my head of like a struck qu to replate where there's like

figs and honey with some meats, some cheeses. But yeah, to me, it felt like it almost had this honey sweetness going on on the tail end that made me appreciate it even more. Yeah, I totally see what you're saying on the sweetness. It almost had like a white wine kind of quality, like a sweet white wine kind of sweetness going on. And I agree it was kind of light on the fig but heavy on the tart.

But I'm cool with that. I like figs, but not nearly as much as my seven year old who would just like pull them off in clumps and just start tossing them in her mouth. But I thought it was a truly excellent golden sour. I mean, wicked Weed still makes I think some of the best fruited sours out there. And you know with this bottles three years old, man, it's held up nicely. This one's just been hanging out in my beer cellar, which is actually our pantry, and

I really enjoyed it. Manethelois was a delicious sour beer. Nice man, Well, that is going to be it for this episode. Listeners can find our show notes up at our website at how to money dot com and there will be sure to link to that deaths income ratio calculator, as well as some other resource is that you might find helpful. Again, if you have enjoyed this episode, if you're enjoying the show in general, well, we would encourage you to hit the subscribe button so that you get

every single episode delivered to your podcatcher. And also if you haven't left a review yet, man, we'd really appreciate you letting people know what you think of the show over on Apple Podcasts. And thanks in advance. All right, Matt, that's gonna do it for this episode until next time. Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,