Realtor Leigh Thomas Brown says the real barrier to homeownership is getting in at all. Skip the dream house. Buy a duplex or modest starter home, rent it out for income, and use the equity to move up later. The first property doesn't need to be perfect, just a stepping stone.
But the thing I will tell you is this, getting into the real estate game might be the hardest part, but if you don't get in, you're never going to be able to move up later on. And then the last question that I want to add here is for someone who says that their buyer can't afford to buy. All right, well, let's talk about what affordability looks like, y'all, because sometimes when we think about buying a house, we've got that champagne taste on a beer budget, or we're wanting to buy something that's as nice as the Taj Mahal. This goes back to what I was saying about a reset on what housing could look like, and not everything needs to really be fancy. So if you're talking to a buyer that thinks they can't afford it, have you presented to them some additional options such as duplexes? It's just really hard. So the barriers to entry rise with time. So figure out how to get yourself started, and it might just be that your first house is not what you wanted specifically, but you can grow into it, y'all. And Maybe it's just time that we have a little reset on how it's okay to get into something that's not perfect, and then build up that desire to make it better so that you can move up later on. Even though I'm the REALTOR® that says, try not to sell it, hold on to it as a rental if you can, and build yourself some revenue stream into the future.
