10 Steps to Buying a Home

Everything You Need to Know about Buying a Home

Applying for a mortgage to buy your first home is a big financial decision. We want to provide you with all of the resources you need prior to applying.

Buying a home is a time-consuming process. We’ve broken the steps down for you so that you know what to expect along the way and to make it easier for you.

1. Determine Your Home Needs
Once you have decided to purchase a new home, defining the needs of your home is an important first step. Making lists of must-have items, as well as things you can live without, will help you to set these parameters.

2. Determine How Much You Can Comfortably Afford
Your current financial situation will play a major role in your home buying decision. The factors that come into play are your current income, savings, debt and fixed expenses, as well as current interest rates.

3. Meet With Us to Get Approved
If you meet with us prior to starting the process, then we can help to advise you on what steps to take next. We can assist you with understanding if you should pay off credit cards and we’ll review your current loans and existing balances prior to finding the home you want to buy. Learn more about getting approved.

4. Get the Right Real Estate Agent
Finding the right real estate agent for your needs is a key step in this process. Real estate agents have access to multiple listing services and insight into the market, which can help you find the home you’re looking for, as well as facilitate the negotiating and closing process.

5. Find Your Home
Once you’ve found the right real estate agent for your needs, the next step is finding your home. A tip for looking for your home is to drive by the neighborhoods prior to looking at the house with your real estate agent. This helps you to discover things about the neighborhood that you may not discover while with your agent.

6. Make an Offer
In the next step you will work with your real estate agent to make an offer. At this point you should expect to go back and forth with the seller to come to an agreement on the price.

7. Get a Home Inspection
It’s generally a good idea to get the home inspected prior to making the home officially yours. You can likely make the sale of the home contingent upon a home inspection.

8. Get the Home Appraised
At this point you will likely need to get the home appraised to ensure that the value is worth the agreed upon price.

9. Coordinate the Paperwork
Finally, it’s time to gather the paperwork in order to switch the ownership of the home over to you. Your real estate agent will help you with this process.

10. Close the Sale
At this point you will need to sign all of the paperwork to make the house officially yours!

Now that you know the process, contact us or get started by telling us a little more about yourself with this form.