1. Financial Preparation
Financial prep is the first step to owning a home. This includes setting a clear budget with a lender’s help. You’ll consider factors beyond your mortgage, such as property taxes, HOA fees, other assessments, and utilities. Understanding your finances early ensures you’re prepared for monthly costs, which prevents unexpected financial stress after purchase. This also allows you to understand all the numbers before making an offer on a home. Just because you are pre-approved to a certain amount does not mean you have to buy a home at that amount. You must feel comfortable with your budget when purchasing a home.
2. Define Your Dream Criteria
Once you know your budget, the next step is to outline your home criteria. This includes deciding on location, nearby amenities, commute distances, and specific home features like bedrooms, bathrooms, and must-haves within the home. Once you have your must haves, then you will make a wants list. By narrowing down the homes based on your specific preferences, you’ll avoid touring homes that don’t meet your needs, streamlining the home search process. I will ask which days and times work best for you, so I can block those days and times for showings..
3. Tour Homes That Fit Your Style
Now it’s time for the fun part: touring homes! During tours, pay attention to details like layout, condition, surrounding area and potential maintenance needs. Touring homes helps narrow your choices and helps you visualize if the home will work to call yours. While we tour homes, this is the time to really do your due diligence and make sure that you are comfortable moving forward before making an offer. Once we find the home that you love, we will go over the comparables, and draft up your offer.
4. Making the Offer
Now it’s time to make an offer. This step involves reviewing market trends, comparables, and breaking down the terms of the offer. The higher the purchase price does not always mean the best offer. There may be important items to the seller, which we put into the offer. There are items like maybe putting down more earnest deposit to show you are a serious buyer, shorter contingency periods, larger down payment, including a rent back and more. I have a certification in negotiation and it is important to have a Realtor who will communicate with the other side and negotiate.
5. Escrow and the Final Steps
After the seller accepts your offer, you enter escrow which usually is about 30-40 days depending on the terms of your contract. It is essential to pay attention to the contingency periods to protect your earnest deposit and potentially being in default. The first item that is addressed in escrow is opening up escrow with a title company. The title company is a third party that handles the documentation to ensure that you will hold a clean title, and that the home is properly recorded with the county. By the end of escrow, all documents are signed, payments are confirmed, and you’ll receive the keys to your new home, making you a proud homeowner. I will be with you every step of the way to ensure you have a smooth home buying experience.
Let’s connect and discuss your options to help you become a home owner.
