BUYER TIPS
Congratulations on your decision to purchase a new home! Your first step toward buying your new home will be to analyze your family’s needs. I would be happy to assist in analyzing your needs so that you will be able to get a clear picture of exactly what your new home should be.
First, you should write down what you are looking for in your new home. For example, are you currently renting and would like to have a home where you can begin building equity? Maybe you recently married and have outgrown your current residence. Or, maybe you have just gotten that promotion, which allows you to move to your Dream Home. There are many factors that will have a bearing on how you approach your home search.
Second, establish a time frame that you would like to stay within for buying your home. Depending on your reasons for wanting a new home and the current state of the market here in the area, you will be able to come up with a rough guideline, which you can finalize as you gather more information.
Last, you most likely have a mental picture of what you would like your house to look like and what features it should have. It’s very important to write these ideas down to avoid any ambiguity later in your home search. You should make at least two lists: one should be a list describing your dream home and the other should list the features of the home that you feel are absolute must have in order to buy the home. In a perfect world, your new home would fulfill both lists 100 percent. It is more likely that you will end up blending the two lists into a schedule of prioritized items as you progress through the buying process. This is a natural and evolutionary process that will become much clearer as you find out what is available here in our market.
Now that you have your list of features you want in your new home, you are ready to start looking! Well, not just yet. You are going to need to know in what price range to look. It is now time to go get pre-approved or pre-qualified for a mortgage. You will need to contact a mortgage company and I would be happy to refer a company or loan officer that I have worked with in the past who has the ability to make your dream home become a reality.
There are some key differences between pre-qualification and pre-approval for a loan that you need to be aware of. Loan pre-qualification is a simple process. It takes into account very basic information regarding your financial status and gives you an amount for which you may qualify. This can be done strictly on a verbal level or electronically over the Internet or by phone. The pre-qualified amount is based solely on the information you provide. In most markets, pre-qualified buyers usually hold little clout compared to pre-approved buyers due to the fact that the information given during the pre-qualification process is not thoroughly investigated and therefore may be unreliable.
Where a pre-approved buyer is actually approved for a loan of a certain amount, a pre-qualified buyer is only told that they might be approved for a certain amount. Pre-approval is a much more involved process. The lender will take all pertinent information regarding your finances and perform an extensive check on your current financial status. This will ultimately give you the exact amount that you will be eligible for (depending on what type of loan you decide to go with). Being pre-approved lets the seller know that you have gone through an extensive financial background check and there should be no unexpected obstacles to buying the home. You can see how being pre-approved would be more attractive to a seller than just being pre-qualified.
Now that you have your list of needs and wants and you know how much you can afford to spend, it’s time to look at some houses! Not just yet. Step back for a moment and consider the larger picture. You will not just be just buying a house you are buying the neighborhood the home is in, use my web site to view many area subdivisions. When you find your dream home you want it to be in a neighborhood that is to your liking with the amenities that you need. So, you will need to make another list of what type of neighborhood you want to live in. You will most likely want to consider things like how living in the neighborhood will affect your drive time to and from work, what amenities are offered (swimming pool, tennis courts, park, etc.), and, if you have children who are attending school or soon will be, what school district you will be in and how close the schools are. You may even want to make two lists just as you did with your home criteria. I will be able to help you consolidate the information from your list of needs and wants for your home, your pre-approval, and your list of needs and wants for the neighborhood. From this, you can incorporate this information into a search profile, which you can then narrow down to specific areas dictated by the market in which you will be looking. My experience in our local markets will be a valuable resource during this step.
Through my website you will be able to view many area subdivisions, new developments, local builders area schools and much more. So now when the weather is nasty, the kids not feeling well you may still be searching for your Dream Home. If your life is a bit hectic you may chose to sign up for my Dream Home function and let your computer do some of the work.
Every day new properties come to the market, the Dream Home function will send all newly listed properties that meet your pre-set criteria every day in an email so you will never miss the perfect home for you and your family.
