Getting Started
1. Discuss & Establish Your Goals
- It is important from the initial onset that we establish a realistic idea of what you are seeking in your very first home. Some of the factors that play a role in establishing this include, but are not limited to: price range, area(s), square footage, lot size, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, architecture style, etc.
- Obtaining a pre-approval from a mortgage lender will help you tremendously in educating you on what type of home you may be capable of mortgaging. It will establish what type of loan you qualify for and specify the price points in which you do not want to exceed. In addition to this, a pre-approval is required when submitting an offer on a home. So, if you want to make sure you can place an offer on that dream home when you first see it, follow step #2 and set yourself up for success!
- Our initial conversation along with a pre-approval from your mortgage lender will lead us to the start of our home search. I will personally put together a search criteria that is specific to what we discussed (with your pre-approval maximum in mind) and results generated from a Realtor verified listing database will be sent to you on an almost daily basis. These results will be the most up to date and accurate results you will find. It is also very popular for home buyers to search for themselves using Realtor.com, Zillow, or Trulia. Although taking a proactive approach is great and will help you build a general knowledge of the market in which you are browsing, tread carefully because you will find data on these 3rd party websites may be inaccurate. Much like any other part of the home buying process, communication is key when you find a home that you may be interested in! Once you find a home, or have to put together a list of homes, that you would like to see, we will establish a date/time that would work best for you and I will personally submit a “request to show” the home(s).
- When you decide “this is the one” and want to place an offer on a home, we will discuss the listing price of that home and review comparable properties in that area to justify our offer price. Once we agree on a price and terms to offer, we submit our “purchase agreement”. If the offer is accepted, we are now under contract and the home is marked “Pending”. Our contract is in full effect and our inspection timeframe begins.
- You’re probably thinking “What is an inspection?”. An inspection is a section within our purchase agreement that enables us to have a 7-10 day timeframe (from the agreed date of our signed contract) to hire a licensed inspector (estimated $300 cost) to thoroughly review the property and provide a detailed report on the status of the home. Both you and I will be present for the inspection. Following our inspection, we take into account and review all findings from the inspection report and decide if we would like to:
- Move forward in the process with all initially agreed upon terms in place.
- Renegotiate terms
within the deal based on what our inspection revealed (roof must be replaced,garage door is broken, etc.). - Remove ourselves from the deal entirely and mark the purchase agreement “void”.
- Once both parties have acknowledged the conclusion of our inspection period, your loan file will move forward with your mortgage lender. Your file will be reviewed at length by an underwriter and you will be required to provide many important documents. These documents include, but are not limited to: job status verification, annual salary/hourly wage paystubs, documentation of taxes, marital status, credit card debts, monthly payments, etc. While this is going on, your mortgage lender will also hire an appraiser to go to the property to provide his professional opinion on the value of the home. The appraisal portion of the home buying/selling process is very detail oriented and can cause confusion amongst first time home buyers and sellers. As this process unfolds from the start, I can confidently say I will better educate you on this portion of the Real Estate deal.
- When we receive the clear-to-close from your mortgage lender, this means a few things:
- Your loan file successfully went through underwriting and you are deemed as qualified by your lender to mortgage the home.
- The home either appraised at
value (theagreed upon sale price) or we were able to negotiate terms that met the mortgage lenders requirements. - The closing date is typically 40-45 days from the date we signed our contract with the seller(s).
- The amount of money you can expect to bring to the closing table in order to finalize the sale of the home includes:
- Down payment – as low as 3% of
sales price - Mortgage costs – estimated $2,500
- Homeowners Insurance – estimated $1,000 (this varies greatly depending on
type of home; residential or condominium) - One year of taxes paid in full (estimated property tax amount will be discussed in “Step 4: Placing an Offer”)
- Down payment – as low as 3% of
