If you’ve been renting a home for years now and are tired of moving from place to place within Sedona — along with giving roughly 30 percent of your income to your landlord — then this blog is for you.

While renting an apartment for the majority of your life is most certainly an option, many people today — especially of the millennial generation — dream of a yard with a white picket fence, but don’t think it’s in the cards for them due to their financial situations or the fact they know next to nothing about what the home buying process entails.

We’re here to tell you at Brian and Cindy Real Estate that switching from renting to owning a home isn’t as daunting of a venture as it may seem! If you love Sedona like we do and are ready to settle down, we can help you find a home for sale in Sedona within your ideal price range perfect for starting the next chapter of your life as a homeowner!

For those of you that are uncertain about if you are truly ready or not to take the plunge into homeownership just yet, we’ve outlined a few recommendations for items to have checked off before deciding to purchase your very first home.

Telltale Signs You’re Ready To Buy A House

You’re Out Of Debt

This isn’t by any means a must in order to purchase your first home, but it can undoubtedly make the decision process easier if you are still making sizeable monthly student loan payments that make a mortgage seem far out of your budget’s reach. At the same time, though, if you are are still making loan payments but are close to being out of debt and have developed an ongoing track record of on-time payments, this can make it much easier for you to get a great deal on mortgage rates. Which brings us to our next point.

You Have Good Credit

In most cases, it is always better to put monthly payments towards a mortgage that leads to ownership rather than rent payments that just leave you empty-handed, but only if you have established a good line of credit beforehand. Having good credit is essential before going looking into homes for sale because if your credit is poor, your bank account will suffer from higher mortgage rates, making paying rent seem much more appealing.

You Love Where You Live

If you’ve set up shop in Sedona or wherever you currently live and have no plans of leaving within at the very least the next five years, then there’s no reason to keep renewing that lease! By purchasing a home, even if you don’t end up staying for the rest of your life, you can at least sell your Sedona home when you are ready to move and receive back a majority, if not close to all that you paid for it.

You’ve Saved Up For A Down Payment

While you may delight in the discovery that you can switch from rent to mortgage payments without taking on too much more of a financial burden, there are still multiple other factors involved in purchasing a home, including one major one — the down payment. This requires a substantial investment — the largest investment you’ve likely ever made.

While it is easier today than in the past to purchase a home with down payments as little as 3.5 percent (on a $200,000 home, that’s just $7,000) many people save up only this amount and think they’re sitting peachy. The fact of the matter is, there are a lot of additional expenses outside of a down payment that go into purchasing a home from closing costs, insurance, taxes, and repairs and furnishings necessary to transform your property into your ideal home.

Our advice is to save up roughly double the amount of your estimated down payment prior to tackling home buying in order to be able to cover all of the other expenses that come along with purchasing and moving into a new home.

If all of these signs, or even just a handful of them, apply to you, then congratulations, you are well on your way to being ready to break up with your landlord and make the switch from leasing to owning a home. If you are looking to buy a home in Sedona, we would love to help! Brian and Cindy Real Estate have been the local real estate experts in Sedona for decades and can help you find the home of your dreams! Contact us today to get started on your new home search.