I feel kind of embarrassed by my own ignorance here.

[kitewithfish]

So, I'm in the process of buying a condo, and I have realized in this process that I know really almost nothing about getting a home loan.

Also, this whole process of finding and applying to buy a condo, while it will eventually end in my being co-owner of a condo, is kind of hard on the ego, because I keep learning how I know basically nothing about how this works at all.

And I realize I'm in a position of immense privilege here! Financially and whole bunch of other ways, I really, immensely do!  AND part of my ignorance is that this is happening faster than I realized it was happening and I am feeling like I need to do a bunch of research on a deadline with no syllabus.

Like, I'm fairly certain the application process is not binding! and that if my nice local credit union is screwing me over, I will be able to figure it out! And at some point, people will carefully walk me thru the mortgage payments and it will all be predictable and hopefully I won't fuck up and get something awful, but DANG, this is a bit nerve wracking. 

 

Comments

[author_by_night]

I'm totally confused about the whole process myself, so I hear you.

[misbegotten]

Hey there! I was passing by via network. Having been through the home buying process several times, I can’t stress how important it is to shop around for a home loan. And to pay close attention to closing costs. If you haven’t already run across it, NerdWallet is a good resource. Check out https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/mortgages/first-time-home-buyer-mistakes-that-are-easy-to-avoid/ in particular. (Sorry for not making that clickable but I’m on my phone and it doesn’t like HTML)

Good luck!

[kitewithfish]

You actually did make it clickable! And thank you, that was very helpful. I actually feel like I'm in a good place by that list, bc I definitely was aware of some of those tripping points before I got into this, so maybe I'm not totally Dunning-Kreuger'd. :D

[tei]

I have no idea how anyone is supposed to learn about this stuff! It's not like they teach you how to buy a house in school.

[kitewithfish]

I did get a book from the Better Business Bureau on the process, and skimming over it last night helped a lot. There are also a surprisingly large number of good guides, once I went looking.

[yourlibrarian]

I'm afraid I don't know anything about the process of getting a loan but I am fairly familiar with the closing process due to past work. So if there's anything specific you want to post about going forward I could probably weigh in.