Deciding to buy a home comes with many steps you need to follow, which can ultimately feel incredibly overwhelming. If this is your first time buying a home, this whole experience is new to you and includes twists and turns and all sorts of red tape you need to maneuver through. Here are some tips for guiding you through your homeownership journey.
Research the Area
Thinking about the area you want to live in comes with many factors that could matter to you. Considering things like the school district, what the taxes are like, the distance between you and loved ones, and how close it is to work, and grocery stores are all things you may find important. Understanding what truly matters to you about the area you live in will help you narrow down your search before it even starts. If you have lived in the same area your whole life, and plan on staying there, you may not even have to consider these factors as closely as others. If you are moving to an entirely new location, whether it’s a new city or a completely new state, doing extensive research and narrowing it down to a specific area will greatly help you in your home search.
Pick Your Agent
You may find yourself looking for some of these answers and coming up short, which is where the help of a real estate agent could come in handy. Finding a realtor that fits well with you and your needs can be helpful in your home buying process. Try hiring someone that understands your wants and needs so they can bring you the most viable listings to consider. There is no rule saying you have to pick the first realtor you see; it is important to have meetings with a few to decide which is the best fit for you and your family. Pick someone that you feel comfortable with, especially in their ability to find you your forever home in the budget you set.
Finalize Your Budget
Once you have a realtor, they will help put the process into perspective for you. One of the first things they will tell you is to research your budget ahead of time and to try and receive preapproval for home loan financing to get a concrete number for your budget. Having this mortgage preapproval as a guidepost will allow you to see your options more clearly. You and your realtor may look for houses closer to the top of your budget, or you may look for places on the lower end with the expectations of having funds left over to spruce up the home yourself.
Weighing the pros and cons of choosing a fixer-upper or a turnkey home will be something you, your family, and your realtor will have many conversations about in the home buying process, but ultimately the choice is yours. It is important to note that getting preapproved also starts a clock on your home buying journey, as preapprovals only last for 90 days. This clock can be beneficial if you are an indecisive person that needs a strict time frame to help with deciding on what to do next.
Prepare for Curveballs
Your realtor will tell you that you should expect the unexpected. Your dream home could be found, but once you see how much work the property needs, that dream may look more like a nightmare. It could be a few days from closing on a home and the sellers decide not to sell or move forward with a different buyer. You may even back out of the deal yourself because of some issues that arise during the closing process.
In any of these cases, you are back at square one. Unfortunately, there are multiple factors outside of your control during this process, which can add to your stress levels. Controlling what you can is vital to keeping you from losing faith throughout the home buying process. Completing everything you need to on time or even ahead of schedule will have sellers seeing you as someone very serious and determined to buy their home.
Life After Buying a Home
Once you’ve finished up the home buying process and have the keys to your new home, it will be important to consider how you are taking advantage of the property and building equity long-term. While you may be looking for a home to start your family or take your first big step into adulthood, knowing that buying real estate is a great investment can help you think about the future beyond those four walls. Your house is something you can use to your advantage at any stage of your ownership. You can even use the equity to fund renovations and pay down debts.
As you live there and work on the home, you can increase the value of your property with home renovations you complete. Refinishing the hardwood floors and updating appliances or windows can immediately uptick the home’s value and get you in a prime position for selling the house way above what you bought it for originally. You may be looking for a home to serve as your forever home but keeping your options open to whatever the future may bring can have you thinking about the true potential of how your property can serve you.
Finding yourself on the other side of this process and being a homeowner is something that you may not visualize now through all the paperwork, forms, and loan applications you have in front of you. Just knowing that there is a finish line to get to will have you organizing yourself and your to-do list as much as possible to get you into your dream home.
