1. Before you look at a single house
Check your credit six months out
Pull your report early. Errors are common and take weeks to correct, and a twenty-point difference in score can move your interest rate — which, over thirty years, is a genuinely large number. On a $350,000 loan, half a percent is roughly $100 a month and about $36,000 over the life of the loan.
Get pre-approved, not pre-qualified
Pre-qualification is a conversation. Pre-approval is an underwriter reading your documents. In the stronger Johnson County school catchments, an offer without a real pre-approval letter often is not read at all.
Use a local lender if you can. Listing agents here know which lenders close on time, and that reputation is quietly worth something when a seller is choosing between two similar offers.
Know the difference between approved and comfortable
Lenders approve you for a payment you can technically service. That calculation does not know about childcare, the commute, or what you would like your life to look like. Decide your own ceiling first, then treat the approval as a limit you do not intend to reach.
The most common regret we hear is not "we should have bought more house." It is "we did not realize how tight the first year would feel."
2. What it actually costs
The down payment is not the whole number
- Down payment — 20% avoids mortgage insurance, but plenty of loans start at 3–5%, and Kansas and Missouri both run first-time buyer assistance programs worth asking a lender about.
- Closing costs — typically 2–5% of the purchase price, due at signing. On a $350,000 home that is $7,000–$17,500.
- Inspection — a few hundred dollars, paid up front. Add a sewer scope on anything built before about 1985.
- Earnest money — usually 1–2%, paid at contract. It counts toward your purchase but you need it liquid weeks before closing.
- Insurance and property tax — usually escrowed into the monthly payment, so they change the payment rather than the deposit.
- Moving and month-one repairs — assume something needs doing. It always does.
Keep a reserve
Three to six months of expenses left over after closing. Buying a house that empties your savings is how a good purchase becomes a stressful year.
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Esther & Hillary