Proposals & Property: Marriage, Then Mortgage

FIRST COMES LOVE, then comes the wedding planner, the reception site reservation, the florist, the bridal showers — and, if you're lucky, a down payment on a sweet condo or bungalow.

For young couples, getting engaged often feels like a sprint through rites of passage, all of which come with giant price tags.

When Mark Helfman, 28, of Burtonsville, Md., proposed to his girlfriend, he knew he wanted to buy a place sometime in the near future, but he wanted to take one step at a time.

"It is impossible to do house hunting and plan a marriage at the same time," Helfman says. "I would get down on both my knees to anyone who can pull it off."

Helfman ultimately bought a townhouse in November with his now-wife, Ilise Helfman, 28, in the Greencastle Lakes community development, four months after they were married in a Jewish ceremony. "Stomping on the glass, saying 'hi' to relatives and eating cake" was nothing compared to signing his name on "800 dotted lines" at the closing, he says.

"Till death do us part?" Breezy. A 30-year mortgage? Daunting.

The median price for a condo in the Washington metro area in 2007 was $294,200, well above the national median price of $226,400, according to the National Association of Realtors. The median sales price for existing single-family homes in the region was $430,000, more than double the national figure.

Looking at those six figures while trying to plan the most expensive party of your life can be paralyzing.

"It's like ripping the bandage off fast," says Dave Jenks, who co-wrote "Your First Home: The Proven Path to Home Ownership" ($13, McGraw-Hill) with Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.

"But there's some fun in this marriage stress express, too," Jenks says. "There's an advantage. It means that when you then settle in the building together, all the foundational pieces are there. It's not long after you're married that you're inviting the wedding party over to your housewarming and celebrating another event. You're launching your life together."

Last year, one-third of all home-buyers were first-time home-buyers, according to the NAR. The most common age range of home-buyers nationwide last year — 25- to 34-year-olds — coincides exactly with U.S. Census Bureau data on the average age of men and women when they get married for the first time.

Helfman caught a break on getting the nuptials rolling — his future mother-in-law, Wendy Raab, is a wedding planner with Rave Reviews in Kensington, Md.

When the Helfmans went to buy a home, they turned to a professional, as well.
Their real estate agent, Sandy Wills, with W.C. and A.N. Miller — a Long and Foster Company in Maryland — sat them down and explained the buying process.

"I asked them, 'What's your dream house? Do you want a fireplace? Do you want a garage? What areas do you want to live in? How close to work?" Wills says.

Wills encouraged them to pull their credit reports, talk to a mortgage broker and understand the kind of range they should be looking at.

"One of the good things about waiting until after the wedding was we got a lot of [money] gifts and we were able to use some of that toward our down payment," Helfman says.

Jenks, co-author of "Your First Home," says the Helfmans followed a rule most modern couples know: Get professional assistance.

"In the case of a wedding, you hire a wedding planner. When you're buying your first home, the No. 1 thing you need to do is select a really good first-time buyer real estate agent," he says.

Like the Helfmans, an advantage young couples have is they are forced by circumstances to buy a good deal, Jenks says. In other words, their income usually limits their choices. "When you have more money, people fall in love with places over their heads," he says.

Jenks recommends purchasing at the "sweet spot," about 10 to 20 percent below the median sale price for an area, as an investment.

Even if a mortgage would exceed monthly rent payments, it can pay off because the interest on a mortgage is tax-deductible.

"For most first-time buyers, it's an economical right thing to do," Jenks says.
And for newlyweds, it's a great part of building a partnership, he says. Buying a home together pushes couples to talk about financial issues such as combining bank accounts and splitting mortgage payments — those big-ticket questions couples must navigate.

If Jenks has noticed any trend with first-time home buyers, it's that young couples are buying sooner. "Most people are realizing it's the foundational start of your financial life," he says. "Owning my own home was the best accidental investment I made in my life. You seldom hear people saying, 'We wish we hadn't bought a house.'"

Here's how Robin Rider's fiance popped the question: "Do you want your house or your ring first?"

The real love story isn't quite so brash and includes a romantic fireside proposal another year down the road. But for Rider, 29, who moonlights as a wedding coordinator with R&R Event Planning, "homeowner" sounded sweeter than "housewife."

"We had saved up some money, and we were tired of paying for this apartment every month," she said. "We had to put our priorities first. I said, 'Let's get the house.'"
Rider and her then-boyfriend, Charlie Shyab, 31, did the whole marriage-mortgage mash-up in reverse.

Nationally, a much larger share of first-time buyers are single individuals and unmarried couples compared with repeat buyers, according to NAR data. Among all groups of buyers, unmarried couples tend to be the youngest, at 32 years old; among first-time buyers, they're even younger at 28.

Rider and Shyab were able to take advantage of a new home-buyer's program and, with their families' support, purchased a home in Mount Airy, Md., last April.

"Charlie's parents offered to give us money for the house, whereas I don't know if they would have for a wedding," she said.

With R&R Event Planning, Rider prides herself on working with the "budget bride."
"If you read the wedding magazines, you can have a favor and a trinket dripping from every corner of the ceiling," Rider said.

Instead she recently pulled off a $7,000 wedding for a couple who hosted their reception at Jammin' Java in Vienna. An edgy coffee bar with an open-mic stage, Jammin' Java is run by young entrepreneurs who were flexible with the bride's requests and even let the family bring some of their own food. Instead of hiring a DJ, the couple loaded an iPod with the songs for the evening and celebrated with a cupcake wedding cake.

"You can plan a wedding for $5,000. I don't think you can buy a house for that much," Rider said.

Rider got engaged in December and is planning a fall wedding in the Outer Banks. She said she's been cautious about what they spend, but by buying a home first, she was able to adjust her wedding budget to her mortgage payments.

"To be honest, if we had gotten married first, we probably would have had a smaller budget," Rider said. "You feel bad spending this money when you know you want to buy a house later."

Buying first came with another bonus: tax returns. "The first year, you're mainly paying interest," Rider said. "We can choose to use that refund to pay for our wedding — or fix up the house."

Fear No. 6 listed in "Your First Home": "I should wait to buy a home until I get married."
Jenks says there's no advantage to waiting. While some people will rationalize they could buy a better home with two incomes or worry what a future spouse might think of their crumbling fixer-upper, buyers start to build equity earlier and gain the financial benefits of ownership.

The NAR reports that 38 percent of first-time home-buyers in the U.S. last year were single.

"We have seen young professionals buying their homes before they find the person they want to marry," Jenks says.

Throughout "Your First Home," the authors sprinkle in stories of what their first home meant to them. It's a graphical how-to book and is easy to thumb through. The book crams a lot of wisdom onto each page with catchy lists such as "Eight Steps to Buying Your First Home" and "8 Questions to Ask Your Agent." It's almost like when single girls draft that pro-con list of the qualities of the man they want to marry.

"We wanted this to read like a romance novel, not a technical journal, and highlight the romance that's engaged in everyone buying their first home," Jenks says.

"I think people are surprised at how incredibly good it feels to walk across the threshold of a place you own. There's some psychological satisfaction, the idea of having your own castle. It's an emotional good feeling that's hard to predict."

In the beginning, couples might feel overwhelmed by the mortgage payment and taxes, but Jenks says the real satisfaction comes when couples seek buy their second home.

"Whether you want to relocate or move up, you go, 'Oh, my god, that first one was a good idea,'" he says. "You have good credit and equity to bring to your next home."

And maybe a baby for that extra bedroom.

Written by Express contributor Josie Roberts
Photos by Marge Ely/Express