Buy your dream house with confidence

So, you are ready to buy a house—now what? Buying a home is an emotional, exciting, and also exhausting experience. You may also be wondering along the way—what am I missing? This is a common question. Here’s how the buying process works from start to finish.

• 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 we discuss your wish list for your home.  You can search for available homes here:  
• Analyze your budget. Use an online mortgage calculator to determine what your monthly mortgage payment would be if you were to purchase one of the homes you’ve found online. Make some additional estimates for utilities, insurance, HOA dues (if any) and property taxes to see if the estimated payment fits into your budget.
• Get pre-approved. To get pre-approved for a mortgage you’ll need to get some paperwork ready such as: pay stubs, W-2s, bank account statements, tax returns for the past two years, credit lines, and names and addresses of your landlords for the past two years.   Once you have these documents available, you will need to find a lender or lenders (for comparison).  Your eventual lender could be your current bank, a competing bank, a mortgage broker, a mortgage banker, your credit union, etc.  Shopping around and choosing a lender before you make an offer is essential as a pre-approval letter and proof of your down payment are typically submitted with an offer.   Generally, your lender will pre-approve you up to the maximum purchase price and loan amount your finances will allow.  This is by no means  what you should or have to spend!  Alternately, you can provide your lender with your down payment amount and desired monthly payment and they will be able to provide you with a corresponding purchase price. 
• Meet with us.  Getting together will allow us to understand your wants and needs of your future home.  This list of things to consider is endless and can include, but is not limited to:  location, single or multiple story, square footage, lot size, bedrooms, and bathrooms.  In addition consider what your home "must" and "must not" have such as:  a pool, a garage, or updating/remodeling, etc.  Once we know what you are looking for, we will set up a custom search in the local Multiple Listing Service so that we will both be notified immediately whenever any homes that meet your criteria become available - either as new listings, homes that have had price changes, or those that have come back on the market after being previously in contract.   We will help you navigate the process every step of the way!
• Look at homes.  Once we have identified potential homes, we can show you any of them that interest you.  We will be looking for your reaction and feedback of each home to determine which features, locations, etc. that you like in order to determine if a particular home is for you or not!  We encourage you to be patient as this process can sometimes take weeks, months or years! Additionally, once you have found a home of interest, you may have to make offers on multiple homes before one is accepted.  If you are comfortable in doing so, we would also recommend letting friends or families know you are searching for a home as they can sometimes be a good source or be on the lookout for you as well.
• Make an offer. Once you’ve found your dream home, you may want to move quickly in making an offer. Before doing so we will provide you with any advance disclosures and reports that may have been prepared for that home.  This will allow you to make a preliminary assessment about the condition and details of the home that will assist you in making an offer.  You should also consider recent, comparable sales to the home you are considering.  This will give you a good idea of what similar homes have sold for relative to their list prices, condition, etc.  In making an offer you will also want to consider "contingency" time frames for such things including, but not limited to:  inspections/investigation, appraisal, loan, etc.  Lastly, consult your lender as to what the approximate closing costs will be as this amount is typically required in addition to your down payment.  
• Negotiate. Prepare to go back and forth with the seller a few times on price and selling conditions. We will be your advocate here and try to get you your desired price and terms while being fair and respectful to the seller and their real estate agent.
• Once your offer is accepted.  If you reach an agreement with the seller, you’ll make a deposit to an escrow account as contractually required and to show good-faith. Escrow is usually approximately 30 days where the seller takes the house off the market with the contractual expectation that you’ll purchase the house - providing nothing comes up in the contingency time frames that causes/allows you to attempt to re-negotiate or decide to move on.
• Get inspections. Even if the home appears to be flawless, there’s no substitute for having  professional inspectors 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 inspections reveal undisclosed serious defects, you can negotiate further to have the seller make repairs or discount the selling price. You’ll also likely have the option to withdraw your offer and get your deposit money back.
• Closing. When your negotiations with the seller are successful, and you have removed all of your contingencies, you should be ready to close on the agreed upon date. At your closing, you’ll spend a little over an hour signing lots of paperwork and then will be handed the keys.