Money & Career

Buying Your First Home

Go from confused browser to confident buyer: understand affordability, mortgages, offers, inspections, and closing.

This course is for members

$9 unlocks every course in the library, this one included, plus a credit to build a topic of your own and at least 10 new courses every month.

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What you will learn about Buying Your First Home

The 7-day sprint
  1. What You Can Actually Afford. Affordability is set by your monthly cash flow and cash on hand, not by the maximum loan amount a lender is willing to approve.
  2. How a Mortgage Actually Works. A mortgage is a loan secured by the house, repaid in fixed monthly installments where the split between interest and principal shifts over time.
  3. Credit, Down Payment, and Preapproval. Your credit score, debt-to-income ratio, and down payment size are the three dials that decide whether you get a loan and at what price.
  4. Choosing the Property and Reading a Listing. Location and structure are expensive to change; finishes are cheap, so judge a home on what you cannot fix.
  5. Making an Offer That Holds Up. An offer is a package of price, timing, financing, and contingencies, and the non-price terms often decide who wins.
  6. Inspection, Appraisal, and Underwriting. Between accepted offer and closing you run a due-diligence gauntlet, and each step can change the price, the loan, or your decision to proceed.
  7. Closing and the First Year. Closing transfers title and starts a new set of recurring costs, so plan the handoff and the first twelve months before you get the keys.
The 80/20: the 7 concepts that matter most
  • Total monthly cost, not purchase price
  • Preapproval before shopping
  • Contingencies are your escape hatches
  • Location and structure over finishes
  • Cash needed goes well beyond the down payment
  • Time horizon decides whether buying beats renting
  • Inspection findings are a negotiation tool, not a verdict
The core idea, explained like you are 5

A mortgage lets you use a large amount of someone else's money to buy a house now, and you pay it back a little at a time plus rent on the money, which is called interest.

Then the quiz and the ladder

10 questions that correct you when you are wrong, and beginner, intermediate, advanced levels, each with a practical exercise.