Skip to main content

Tips For First Time Home Buyers


If you are currently in the market for your first home, you probably have a lot of questions. You are about to make an important decision for your future, a great investment of both money and time. Here are some tips that can help make your home buying process more successful.

Do Your Homework
The key step in buying a home is doing the proper research. Educate yourself on local schools, neighborhoods, and the kinds of homes available. By reading available materials and talking with experts, you can start to put together your idea of the perfect home.

Start Planning
Most decisions benefit greatly from proper planning and home buying is certainly no exception. Start a filing system with sections such as home buying, home financing and service providers. By forming a home buying plan you can more easily focus on the most important factors and help give structure to the entire process.

Get Pre-Approved or Pre-Qualified
Attaining the right mortgage is a key step in the home buying process, but it doesn't have to be a stress-inducing one. Most lenders offer pre-approval and/or pre-qualification to help you know where you stand. Let me explain the difference between the two.

Pre-Approval:  A written commitment from a lender to finance your home purchase up to a set amount. This indicates that the lender has taken a close look into your financial history and has agreed to lend you a specific amount of money, reliant on certain details like a finalized sales contract and professional inspection.

Pre-Qualification: A preliminary estimate of how much you can afford to pay for a home based on information you provide. Because credit and employment information aren't validated for pre-qualification, it can only be considered a rough idea of a monthly mortgage payment and loan size. This can be a useful guide as you begin the home buying process. 

Look For Value
When shopping for homes, it is important to consider potential value. Even if you are not planning to sell the home some time down the line, it is a good idea to consider the future value of the home. You may not think of a new home as a means to make money, but it is an important investment that requires caution.

Decide What You Are Looking For
Settle on the home features that are important to you (covered parking, hardwood floors, architectural style, etc.) and make an ordered list. Having well established guidelines will help narrow down your search and will prevent you from being shown properties that lack your key amenities. 

Relax
You do not have to make an offer on the first home you see. Make sure to look at other listings in the area to get a feel for the marketplace. When you decide to make an offer on a house, consult with a real estate professional so that all of your questions are answered.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Real Estate Tips for Buyers and Sellers

Thinking about starting a home search or selling your home soon? The 2016 real estate season is upon us, and if you are anticipating a home search, or selling a property, here are some top tips to help you navigate the real estate market in your area this summer.    Buyers: Don't go overboard with an offer While you might be inclined to get into a bidding war over your dream home (the market is pretty competitive), don't overspend to the point where if the market stabilizes your home will have an overly inflated price and make it difficult to resell in the future. If you plan on living in the property for a long time, paying a high price isn't a bad thing, but it's a good idea to set a limit on how high you're willing to bid for a home. Start your search ready If you're already looking into purchasing a home or property, and you know you'll need a mortgage, you should already be shopping for a loan. Buyers with a mortgage pre-approval are a ...
6 comments
Read more

10 Staging Tips To Get Your Home Sold

Ready to sell your house? Staging rooms to show off their true potential is essential when selling your home. Here are a few staging tips to get your home prepared for the market.  1. SAY BYE TO CLUTTER The best thing you can do for your home for sale is to get rid of all of your clutter! Make a rule for your home that for every new piece that comes in, one must go. One of the biggest factors to a cluttered home is too much furniture. Generally, in a professional staging, half the home owner's furniture is removed to make the house look much bigger. Look around your house and see what you can pack away. It'll be worth the investment to get a storage unit for a couple of months to store away a lot of your furnishings and goods. 2. FURNITURE GROUPINGS It's largely misconceived that furniture pushed directly up against walls make a room look bigger, but this is far from true. Instead, you'll want to float your furniture in reach room and away from the walls....
1 comment
Read more

Updates, Renovations and Remodels

When selling a home or property, one of the main goals of the seller is to get the highest offer possible. If the market is hot, the chance of getting a high offer is relatively high. If the market is on the cooler side, many sellers look to alternative options to make their properties more marketable, usually by way of a remodel, a renovation or by updating the property. But what is the difference between a remodel and a renovation? Is an update something that's easy or difficult? While there are no doubt projects that see better return on investment than others, homeowners have a number of options when it comes to boosting their property's value. If you're not particularly ready to put your property on the real estate market, but are looking for ways to help boost your home's overall value, an update, a renovation or a remodel might be just what you're looking for at the current time. Updates Want to help boost your home's value but have a limited budget...
Post a Comment
Read more