How To Be Prepared In Case The Housewarming Party Isn't The Only Surprise In Your New Home

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mel alam How To Be Prepared In Case The Housewarming Party Isn’t The Only Surprise In Your New Home (NAPSA)—Nomatter how thorough your homeinspection,the odds are your new housewill reveal a surprise shortly after you movein. ‘That’s why one young woman, Andrea, was prepared the second time she bought a house. Andreais a digital marketing manager who relocated to Wisconsin from Michigan. Although she had enough saved from thesale of her home, she opted for a 10 percent down payment and financed with a conventional loan and private mortgage insurance. She explained, “I wanted to have some cash on hand for unexpected ex- penses. After all, if 1 wanted to, I could always pay down the principal on my mortgage later with that cash.” The inevitable “unexpected expense” was a surprising one. Andrea closed on her house in March, and when the snow meltedlater that spring,it revealed a yard completely bare oflandscaping. “It never occurred to me to ask for photos of the house from another season,’ she noted. Consequently, Andrea used some of her cash for a retaining wall, bushes, flowers, patio pavers, gravel and fire pit. “It was a blessing in disguise,” she said. “Building it up from nothing gave me the chance to make the outdoor space completely my own andperfect for my twoolder dogs.” Renovations were the main reason she wanted to make a smaller down payment.It took herfive monthsto find the Although she had enough money from the sale of her first home to make a 20 percent down payment on her next one, Andrea opted to use private mortgage insurance and make a smaller down payment. She used thespare cash to build a patio and landscape her new backyard. 1950s ranch homeof her dreams. “It is a fixer-upper, but I am using that chunk of savings as my own revolving line of homerenovation credit,’ she said. If you've been planning on—orjust dreaming about—buying a new home, you can explore your options with a calculator that shows you how much you could save (or lose), depending on how much money you put down,at mgic.com/buynow.