Is It Time To Buy A House? At some point as you're writing out your rent check, you get to the point where you look at the amount and think to yourself - at this rate, I could BUY a house. If you're fed up with paying rent every month that's high enough to finance a mortgage, it may be time to take a serious look at what it would take for you to get a mortgage loan and buy a home of your own. How do you know if it's time to stop renting and time to start investing your monthly payment in a house of your own? 1. Are you planning to stay put in the area? The first question to ask yourself is how long you are planning to stay in your new home. If the answer is 'less than two years', then it may be to your advantage to continue renting for a while longer - and use the time to build up your credit more strongly. If, on the other hand, you're planning to stay in one residence for more than a few years, buying makes more sense. Owning a home puts down roots, and makes you a more stable member of the community. It also makes more financial sense to buy if you're going to hold onto the property for more than two years. Unless you 'flip' properties - buy cheap, make repairs and sell high - it's nearly impossible to recover your investment if you own a house for less than two years. 2. How's your credit? If you've never checked your credit score or read your credit report, this is the time to do it. The higher your credit score, the easier it will be for you to qualify for a mortgage, and the better the terms of the mortgage for which you'll qualify. If you find problems in your credit score, you can take steps to fix them before you apply for a mortgage. This includes erroneous information on your credit report or extenuating circumstances that may have led to a missed payment or two. In many cases, minor credit problems can be repaired with no more than a few months of on-time payments. 3. How much house can you afford? Figuring out how much of a mortgage you can take on can seem almost like some sort of voodoo. You know how much you can afford to pay per month for a mortgage payment - but how does that translate into how much you can afford to pay for a house? The easiest way to work it out is to use an online mortgage calculator. Many web sites that offer credit and loan information have mortgage calculators available that will work in either direction - plug in the asking price of a house and your expected interest rate and the amount of your down payment, and the calculator will tell you an estimated monthly payment. Or plug in your income and expenses, the amount of the monthly payment you can make and the length of time you want to repay it - and the calculator will tell you the most expensive house you can comfortably buy. Posted by Mimi Klotz on December 13, 2008 at 12:00 AM About Mimi Klotz Mimi Klotz is affliated with HELEN PAINTER & CO., RLTRS., which is located in Fort Worth, TX. For further assistance please use the contact information located on the right. As of 02/10/12 the Mimi Klotz RePage is ranked at 8,712 with 170 points.

Local Information for Fort Worth, TX

Latitude: 32.738881 -- Longitude: -97.33379

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ZIP Codes for Fort Worth, Texas	76101  76102  76103  76104  76105  76106  76107  76108  76109  76110  76111  76112  76113  76114  76115  76116  76117  76118  76119  76120  76121  76122  76123  76124  76126  76127  76129  76130  76131  76132  76133  76134  76135  76136  76137  76140  76147  76148  76150  76155  76161  76162  76163  76164  76177  76179  76180  76181  76182  76185  76191  76192  76193  76195  76196  76197  76198  76199
Area Code for Fort Worth, Texas	817
Time zone for Fort Worth, Texas	CST

Other Area Cities:   Burleson, TX  Arlington, TX  Keller, TX  Fort Worth, TX  Bedford, TX  Benbrook, TX  Colleyville, TX  Crowley, TX  Haltom City, TX  Hurst, TX  North Richland Hills, TX  Richland Hills, TX  River Oaks, TX  Watauga, TX  Westover Hills, TX  Azle, TX  Mansfield, TX 

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Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas and the 19th-largest in the United States. The city is also large in geographic area as it covers almost 300 square miles and is the county seat of Tarrant County—the 18th most populous county in the country. As of the 2000 U.S. Census, Fort Worth population was 534,694 (though a 2005 Census estimate placed the population at 624,067). The city is the second-largest cultural and economic center of the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area (colloquially referred to as Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex), which is the largest metropolitan area in Texas as well as the entire South, and the fourth-largest in the United States with a population of 5.7 million in 12 counties. Fort Worth was founded as a military camp in 1849, named after General William Jenkins Worth. Today, the city is portrayed as more old-fashioned and laid-back than its neighbor, Dallas. -- Source: Wikipedia.com