Today is the day. You decided on buying your your first home. It is time to hop in the car and start looking at those “For Sale” signs. You are extremely excited and you want to make this happen sooner rather than later. But let’s just hold on for a quick second here. Buying your first home is the beginning of an exciting journey, but simply jumping into the process without a solid and sound plan might lead to a very expensive mistakes.
In the next few paragraphs, I will outline 4 rather important steps for buying your first home, as well as their implementation. This step-by-step process will save you lots of time, reduce unnecessary stress, and increase your chances of acquiring the best property for your proverbial “buck”.
Buying Your First Home Step # 1 and # 2
Get in touch with either your bank or mortgage broker. They will be able to cover two extremely important variants, when buying your first home – get your credit report (so you know what you score is) and determine your price point or how much of a house you going to be able to afford. There is no reason to waste your precious time to be looking at the $800,000 properties, if you can only afford $550,000 to $600,000.
Based on your annual income and your credit score, the Banker or Mortgage Broker will be able give you a pretty good idea as to how much you can afford and the ball park of what interest rate you might be looking at.
After completing these 2 steps your Banker/Mortgage Broker will issue you a pre-approval, which in turn will make you a much more desirable Buyer in the eyes of the Sellers.
Step # 3. Hire a Realtor In Buying Your First Home
Also extremely important – Realtor will be working very closely with you in finding that dream house and guiding you through the whole process. Don’t be surprised that by the end of the process (considering you have acquired a good Realtor) you will feel that he is the essential part of your friends and family circle.
Please keep in mind that in some instances finding that “dream home” might turn out to be a full time job, so be patient and do not get frustrated. Having said that you have certainly need to be ready to stumble upon your “dream home” on the first or second showings. Regardless of when the feeling of “this is mine” strikes you, be ready to move on with your offer as quickly as you can. Although it is somewhat accustomed to make an offer lower than the asking price and negotiate an acceptable price for both parties involved, you might get into a situation when someone will offer more than you or closer to the asking price. The result? You might be getting involved in a multiple offer situation or price bidding war. So, when you see a property that you strongly feel to be “my home”, please do not hesitate to give Seller the offer that is close to what he’s asking or maybe even exactly what the Seller is asking. Believe me it is much better than all the “could have”, “should have” afterwards.
Step # 3 in Buying Your First Home – Get a Real Estate Attorney.
After the price negotiation is over and it is accepted by both parties involved, the executed copies of Contracts are forwarded to the parties respected Attorneys, which will further negotiate and iron out out all the small details, including but not limited to closing date, deposits, mortgage contingencies (if there are any) and the results of Home Inspection.
You might be able to further negotiate the results of the Home Inspection based on the results of it. If for example, the roof or water heater, need to be replaced, you might ask the Seller to take care of the problem or ask for a money equivalent and fix the problem yourself. Generally speaking, Seller will not replace the problem item with the top quality part/material, therefore in some instances it is more prudent to take a money compensation and install the part/material that is more to your liking and satisfaction. After all this is your home now! (In case you need a good real estate Attorney or Home Inspection Company I will be happy to recommend one or two, that you can chose from)
Step # 4 And the Final One in Buying Your First Home – Closing.
You should think about the closing as a celebration of all the time and effort that you, your Realtor and Attorney had put together achieving the ultimate goal – getting your first home! It is done and over with and all you have to do now is make it your nest, fix and replace whatever you feel needs to be, design your own landscape, choose your colors, your settings, your furniture…well you’ve got an idea.
Congratulations!
Your dream of Buying Your First Home came true.
Home sweet home is where great memories are created, friends always welcome and, of course, happiness and love never ends.