Buy with Confidence

So, you want to buy a house—now what? Purchasing a home can be an emotional, exciting, and also exhausting experience. We will guide you on your home buying journey from start to finish.

 

The next steps of the home buying process will include:

• Preliminary online home search. Check into what homes are selling for in the area(s) 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. 
• Determine your budget. Use an online mortgage calculator to determine what your monthly mortgage payment would be if you were to purchase one of these homes you’ve found online. Make some additional estimates for utilities and see if this fits into your budget.
• Get pre-approved. To get pre-approved for a mortgage you’ll need to get some paperwork ready: pay stubs, W-2s, bank account statements, tax returns for the past two years, and credit lines, and names and addresses of your landlords for the past two years. Start with your current bank, but make sure you check out competitor banks as well – you might get a better mortgage loan rate by shopping around. Also, consider the amount your lender approves you for as a maximum – this is by no means what you should spend. If you need a recommendation for local lenders please reach out! 
• Select an experienced Real Estate agent (like me). A good real estate agent will help you navigate the process every step of the way. Your friends and family will be great sources—see if any of your trusted contacts have someone they recommend.
• 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 months or years—So be patient. Also, make sure you let friends and family know you’re looking for a new home--you may even find out about an amazing home before it hits the market.
• 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. Also, make sure you consider closing costs which could account for 2-5% of the home price.
• Negotiate. Prepare to go back and forth with the seller a few times on price and selling conditions. Your real estate agent will be your advocate here and try to get you, their client as much as possible for your money while being fair and respectful to the seller and their real estate agent.
• An accepted offer. Pop the champagne! If you reach an agreement, you’ll make a 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.
• Due Diligence Period (DDP). During this period you can bring in professionals to inspect and appraise the property. You don’t want to be surprised with a home that needs a lot of unexpected repairs. If the inspection reveals undisclosed serious defects or the appraisal comes in below the contract purchase price, you can negotiate further to have the seller make repairs, provide a credit at closing, or reduce the purchase price. You’ll also still have the option to withdraw your offer and get your earnest money deposit (EMD) back, however, you will not get a refund of your due diligence fee (DDF). 
  
• Escrow period. Now that you've gone past the DDP expiration date and all contract terms are finalized,  you should be on track to close on the property.
• Closing.  At your closing, you’ll spend a little over an hour signing lots of paperwork and then will be handed the keys. Don't forget your driver's license!