Buy With Knowledge

So, you want to buy a house—now what?

• Do some preliminary online searching. Check into what homes are selling for in the areas you’re interested in to give you an idea of what you’re looking for. This will help later on when communicating your wish list with your real estate agent and your budget with your lender. Our website is great for searching for homes. You can do a MLS search here or you can search by City or Property Style. We will also set up a property alert notificiation in our agent MLS system to notify you of any properties that come up for sale matching your search criteria.
• Take care of the budget. You can use an online mortgage calculator to determine what your approximate monthly mortgage payment would be if you were to purchase one of these homes you’ve found online. But be aware of PITI, Principle, Interest, Taxes, and Insurance. You will need to know how much your loan will be for, what the mortgage interest rate is, property taxes for the area, and approximate homeowners insurance. But this is where your mortgage lender comes in, they can give you a much more accurate number than an online calculator.
• Get pre-approved. We have great resources for financing and can connect you with an amazing mortgage lender. To get pre-approved for a mortgage they will ask you gneral questions about your income and debts, and will also ask you to get some paperwork ready: pay stubs, W-2s, bank account statements, tax returns for the past two years, credit lines, and possibly rental history. Also, consider the amount your lender approves you for as a maximum, this is by no means what you should spend.
• Find an agent. A good real estate agent will help you navigate the process every step of the way. Thats what we are here for!
• Look at homes. Your real estate agent may show you a variety of homes to get your reaction on features they think you’ll like. Give your agent detailed feedback so they can show you homes that are perfectly suited to you. Sometimes this process can take time, so be patient, but it is also very fun and rewarding.
• Make an offer. Once you’ve found your dream home, you may want to move quickly. Your agent will guide you on a reasonable first offer to start negotiations based on market conditions and they will prepare all of the paperwork. Also, make sure you consider closing costs, your lender will help you with this.
• Negotiate. Prepare to go back and forth with the seller a few times on price and terms. We will be your advocate here and try to get you, our client as much as possible for your money while being fair and respectful.
• An accepted offer. Pop the champagne! If you reach an agreement, you’ll make an earnest money deposit to an escrow account to show good-faith. Escrow is usually 30 days where the seller takes the house off the market with the contractual expectation that you’ll purchase the house - provided you don’t find any serious problems during the inspection or appraisal process. During the 30 day process you will do your insection, the bank will do an appraisal, sellers will complete any agreed upon repairs, and the Title and Escrow company will provide title insurance and ensure the homes title is clean.
• Do a home inspection. Even if the home appears to be flawless, there’s no substitute for having a professional inspector review the property for quality, safety, and general condition of your potential home. You don’t want to be surprised with a home that needs a lot of unexpected repairs. If the inspection reveals undisclosed serious defects, you can negotiate further to have the seller make repairs, discount the selling price, or potentailly terminate the contract and get your earnest money back if the issues are too large.
• Closing. When your negotiations with the seller are successful, and the inspection came back clean, appraisal comes in at the needed price, and everything has been completed with your lender, you should be ready to close. At your closing, you’ll spend approximately an hour signing lots of paperwork including mortgage and title documents. Once everyone has signed, the title company sends documents to the mortgage company, the mortgage company funds the transaction, and the title company records with the county, you will be officially closed!!! This can take a little time so expect keys closer to the end of the day or possibly the next day. You are now a homewowner!