You might be 100% satisfied with the home you’re in right now. However, if your current property is falling short of what you need or want, you might be asking yourself, “Is my ideal home out there on the market? And, if so, would I be able to afford it today?”
Those are excellent questions, because they speak to possibilities. Is your ideal home just a dream? Can it be a reality for you — perhaps sooner than you imagined?
One way to find out is to explore what’s available on the market. Make a list of what you want in a home — type, features, size, number of bedrooms, neighborhood characteristics, etc. — be as specific as you can. Then, see if homes like that are either on the market now, or likely to come up in the near future.
Next, you will need to find out what the kind of home you want is selling for right now. Be careful here. Depending on the state of the local market, the advertised “asking price” may not be the final selling price.
Finally, of course you will need to determine affordability. To begin, you will need to know what your current property is likely to sell for on today’s market. That will help you determine how much you can invest in a new home.
If you need financing on top of what you’ll take away from the sale of your property, you can easily determine what your monthly payment would be using an online mortgage calculator.
Once you have all that information, you won’t have to wonder whether the home you want is out there and whether or not you can afford it. You’ll know.
