7 Steps to Buying A Home

7 Steps To Buying A Home

Buying a home is a wonderful experience, and with a little help from a Buyers Agent it will be as smooth and easy as possible.

Step #1 Getting to know your each other

The first step is for you as the buyer to find out about all the services we can offer you and for us as your agent to find out about your specific situation and needs for purchasing a new home. Then we will sit down and go over the listings currently on the market and see what fits your criteria and price range to narrow down the list of properties you might be interested in. From this market search you can get a feel for what your money can buy in the market for where you are looking to move. Now on to seeing the properties that you like and are more interested in. While going through potential homes for you, we as your buyers agent look at all the details of the property to see anything that we may think could be a potential problem. Our job as your buyers agent in this process is to explain the importance of disclosures or disclaimers on the properties to help you understand the condition of the property better.

Step #2 Time to be Pre-Qualified

Now that you know your agent, your next step is to be Pre-Approved for a loan. This will determine exactly what you can afford in a home depending on your debt and income. This is better to get prepared in advance to writing any offer on a home. If you have a preferred lender, then you should go to them and get a pre approval letter. If you do not have any preference, we have an in house lender at our office that we recommend and you can come in and meet with. Whether you use our lender or your preferred lender, whey are going to pull your credit and need some finical information from you to prepare the Pre-Qualification letter. After this, you are really ready to buy a home.

Step #3 Selecting the home for you

Now we can look at homes, and with a pre approval letter, you are really ready to write an offer and purchase a home. This process can be a quick or as slow as you like. We understand that you might be a first time home buyer and need time to learn about this entire process, of you might be an experience home investor and you want to move on a property as quickly as possible. No matter what your situation, we will work with you to fit your pace in buying a home. After deciding how quickly you want to move on finding a new home, we need to start singing a few papers. The primary paper work we need you as the buyer to sign, is a Buyer Agency Agreement. This form simply says that we are working solely for you and our fiduciary responsibility are you, also it says to other selling agents that we are working for you. Now before you are ready to write an offer, you need to make sure that you are happy with the condition, and with the disclosure or disclaimer that the seller has filled out on the property. If your happy, then we are happy and now ready to move to the next step.

Step #4 Writing an Offer

This is where we start working together allot more. As your buyer agent we will go over all the paperwork, and there is plenty of paperwork in buying a home. We work with you to explain every bit if the paperwork and to show you all the ways the contracts protect both you the buyer and the seller. In the contract, we will go over everything from offer price to type of inspections you want to get on the property and even see about buying a home warrantee for you new home. At this point, you will have to submit your Pre-Approval letter and a deposit on the property.

Step #5 Countering or Accepting the Offer

Now, just because of submitting an offer on the property does not mean that the seller will take it. They have the option to either accept it, counter it, or reject it. Depending on what they do will depend on what our next step as the buyer is. If they accept it, we good to move to the next step. If they counter the offer or change the terms we have the option to either agree with the new terms or counter back or just reject it all together. Or the seller has the option to reject the contact entirely, if they do we go back a few steps and either write a new better offer, or simply find a different property.

Step #6 Now that we have a contract

Now if the buyer and seller agree on terms, we have a ratified binding contract. Now it does not make since to look at any more properties. At this point, your deposit on the property will be put into the holding and everyone will start working to get this to settlement. We can start scheduling inspections to find out more about the property, and start doing the all the research on the home. If in the inspections you find a serious defect, you have options of either having the seller fix these problems of at worse case voiding the contract. The loan officer now will be working on getting the loan in order for you and going over interest rates. Also the title office will be researching the title and make sure there are no liens or encumbrances. The survey of the property will be ordered on the property and an appraisal will be done on the property. The reason for the appraisal to for the lender to determine that the property is equal to the purchase price.

Step #7 Settlement

Now that every thing is done, all the inspections and research and funding is done, we can go to settlement. For settlement you will have to bring your down payment on the home. You will have to sit down with the seller face to face and go over signing for the new deed for the property and the paperwork for your new loan. As your buyer agent, we will be with you here as well to help along with the settlement office to explain all the paper work and make sure everything is in order. At the end of settlement, the home is yours! You have keys and are ready to move your items in and make your new home just the way you want. Congratulations!