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Buying A $599K Townhouse In Los Angeles | Millennial Money - YouTube
Channel: CNBC Make It
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Having something to your
name, it feels great.
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Like people will say, "You don't own
the home, the bank owns the home,"
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but if your name is on
the title, you own it.
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Our home was priced at $599,000
and we put 10 percent down.
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I'm Ver Starr. I'm Jenelle Yee, and
we just bought our first home in
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Gardena, California, which is 20
minutes south of Los Angeles.
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We were looking for a place for
almost a year and a half.
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We knew right away that this was going
to be a longer-term home for us.
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We put the offer down immediately
when we actually viewed it.
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So I actually work remote and location
for me wasn't a huge factor.
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Ver actually works in Santa Monica.
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So we do like that it allows
him to have that commuter experience.
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So he does take the buses
and train over to work.
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We have a two-car garage where that
opens up into the front door area,
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which is like a den. It's an open floor
plan, so we have a huge couch with
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a TV. We have solar panels which
are owned outright so we don't lease
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them. They just came baked into
the price of the home.
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And that hopefully brings down
our costs on electricity.
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Alright, this little room right here is
actually just right next to the
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living room. It's just like a den.
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As you could see,
it's a computer setup.
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This is my area.
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So here in my home office, I have
converted it from one of the two guest
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bedrooms. So now I have an L-shaped desk
with dual monitors, and a lot of
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my work is done digitally because it
is a remote type of role.
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When it's a real estate
agent who's representing the buyer,
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the buyer actually doesn't pay anything to
the real estate agent that is
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representing them. It's actually baked into
the sales price of the selling
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home and the seller.
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So typically closing costs for
buyers is like 3 percent.
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I think it was about two years ago
that we really decided we wanted to
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stop renting. Prior to
moving to L.A.,
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we both lived in Austin, Texas.
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And once we moved to L.A.,
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the rent doubled. And then once we
got here, the rent just kept increasing
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every year since we were already
paying rent close to $3,000.
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We were looking at monthly payments
that would be around that.
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All throughout high school and college,
I was also working multiple
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positions. Along with those savings, I
started working for a non-profit
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part-time remote along with working a
full-time job, so that helped me
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save a little bit faster
and also build my capital.
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And along with savings, I do
have investment accounts and retirement
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funds. Since I work remote,
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I usually just eat at home, and I don't
really need to go out for lunch or
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anything like that. I make my own cold
brew, and this is why we were able
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to get a house because
I save money on coffee.
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When we first started looking for
homes all throughout California, ranging
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from Burbank to Glendale, all of the
homes were priced at $700,000 or
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$800,000 or even higher.
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So that was pretty hard for us
to kind of budget it out.
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Usually the prices will be a little lower
if you just have to commute an
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extra 20 or 30 minutes.
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So for example, we're
in Gardena, California.
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It's about 20 to 30
minutes away from central L.A.
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and also the main part of the city.
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So that was a little bit of
a sacrifice we had to make.
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When we spoke with a real estate
agent, they wanted us to get pre-approved
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and that involves, you know, having
your W-2s, your tax statements, your
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proof of funds and then, you
know, submitting it to a lender.
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The reason why we went with Wells Fargo
for this one was because they were
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offering credits towards closing
costs and upgrades.
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We were able to
get $15,000 in credits.
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So we used that partially for closing
costs as well as upgrades like the
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floors, the cabinets,
tile, the bathroom.
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And we got a pretty
good rate at 4.125
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percent on a 30-year,
fixed rate loan.
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You do have to pay for things
outside of the mortgage, outside of the
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loan, outside of the down
payment, such as an inspection.
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It's a new build. So there wasn't
a lot of issues with that.
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We knew about closing costs.
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We knew that since we put less than
20 percent down, we would have PMI.
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Fortunately, it's not like
a couple hundred.
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It's actually less than
$100 for our PMI.
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When you're a homeowner, you don't have
a landlord, you don't have a
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property manager to, you know, submit a work
form or, you know, get a new
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fridge, you have to take
care of it yourself.
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If you have bug
problems, that's on you.
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You know, if something breaks,
that's on you as well.
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The first step, get pre-approved.
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See how much you're making, how much you
have saved up, and then how much
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you can afford. Don't open any lines
of credit when you're in the process.
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Like the underwriters typically are the
ones who make the decision.
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So, you know, they're looking at
your credit score, they're looking at
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debt to income ratio. Those
things that I mentioned.
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We were very lucky because, you
know, Jenelle was transitioning jobs.
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So don't do that.
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Like don't try to get a new job.
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Don't quit your job. Make sure that you
have proof of funds and proof of
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income when you're in the process.
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Buying a house or just a
property or anything like that.
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It's like once you go through it once,
you know that you can get through
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it. Now that we understand the
process firsthand, I think it's definitely
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something we can do in the future.
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