Buying your First Home

Project Due

Few people have enough money saved to buy a house without getting a mortgage – particularly for their first home. In this project you will select a house that you would like to buy and investigate the total costs involved in owning that home.

  • First we need some initial information to start our Research.

At what age do you think you’d like to purchase your first home? ______

What will your future career be (think back to career project)? ______

What degree do you need? ______

What college will you go to? ______

Yearly Tuition there? ______Total Tuition(including med school or law school or other schooling)? ______

Expected Salary? ______

Expected total college debt? ______

Expected monthly college loan payment? ______

Expected car payment? ______

Any other debt? ______How much? ______

Realistically, at the age above, how much do you think you’ll have saved up for a down payment on a home? ______(in your PowerPoint, you should describe how you saved that much?)

  • Next you need to find out how much how you can afford.

Go to Google: CNN HOW MUCH HOUSE CAN YOU AFFORD to get to this site:

Enter in your predicted salary, your predicted down payment, and your monthly debt.

Then click on advanced options

Keep it as a 30 year and 3.99% but change tax and insurance rates based off the state you will live in.

For insurance rates by state go to: (for just this part we will use 0.6%)

For Tax rates by state go to:

Once you put in all this information it will give you an amount as to how much you can afford. For this project you want to find a house LESS than this amount.

  • Now you need to find two houses:
  • One in Rapid City
  • One in where you think you may live
  • For each house you will need to list:
  • The location
  • Price
  • Beds/Baths
  • Sq Footage
  • Lot size
  • Features
  • Find the Loan rate and monthly payment
  • Go to this website: Use 30 year loan and 4% interest
  • Now make your PowerPoint:
  • You will have 10 slides
  • 1 – Title Slide
  • 2 – Your Occupation, Expected Salary, total debt, and how much house you can afford
  • 3 – House you found in Rapid City, need price, beds/bath, sq footage, lot size, and features
  • 4 – House you found for where you want to live, need location, price, beds/bath, sq footage, lot size, and features.
  • 5 –How much of a monthly payment will you make, don’t forget to include the taxes and insurance. Remember to use those sites from the beginning.
  • 6 – Screen shot of the amortization schedule for the first 2 years. State when Loan will be paid off.
  • 7 – Screen shot of the amortization schedule if you pay an extra 10% each month. State when will the loan be paid off.
  • 8 – Define
  • Closing costs
  • ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgage)
  • LTV (loan to value ratio)
  • Earnest money
  • 9 – Define
  • PMI (Private Mortgage insurance)
  • Seller’s market
  • Buyer’s market
  • Buying points
  • 10 – Final Slide – 5 things you have learned from this project