Fellow real estate writer Broderick Perkins again reports on some hard news gleaned from a survey recently completed by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling in his eRate article titled, Half of consumers can’t come up with down payment. In the article, the NFCC cites ways potential homebuyers can help themselves prepare for home ownership, among them creating a budget and documenting where every penny goes, spending less, saving routinely, adjusting their W-4 a bit, liquidating assets whenever practicable, and using credit only for emergencies.
It dawned on me that these were precisely the things my parents did back when they were raising a family (okay, not sure about the W-4 business...). How I learned to do these things wasn’t so much because they sat me down and taught me. As a child I observed them and listened to some of their conversations regarding handling finances.
It all translated down to being told on a regular basis what we could and could not “afford.” The girl next door got horseback riding, swimming AND ballet lessons? “We aren’t them,” my parents would simply state about her family when I whined about wanting the same things. And when I grew to adulthood and got my first job, guess what? I took those darned horseback riding lessons! Ah - and all the sweeter they were because I paid for them myself....
This all begs the question -- how many parents sit their nearly grown children down these days and explain these kinds of discipline to them? Perhaps in the long run this real estate bubble will get people back to the basics, then. You purchase a home when it makes sense to both your pocketbook AND banking institutions – period. Sounds good to me and it sure makes a Realtor’s job a LOT easier…..
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