8 Steps To Take When Buying Your First Ever Home: A Guide

For a first-time buyer, purchasing a house can be difficult. After all, there are many stages, duties, and criteria to consider, and you don’t want to make a costly error. To help make your first home buying a stress-free experience, here’s a checklist of things you should do.

First Time Home Buyer Checklist

1. Take a Good Look At Your Finances. Do a thorough financial assessment before browsing through pages of Internet listings or falling in love with your ideal house. You must be financially prepared for both the purchase and ongoing costs of a house. This audit will inform you whether you’re ready to take this step or if you still need to prepare more.
2. Get Yourself Preapproved for a Mortgage. You’ll need to know how much you can spend before you start shopping for a house. To get prequalified, supply your mortgage banker with essential financial information, such as your salary and the amount of savings and assets you have. Your lender will review this information and will tell you how much they can lend you. This information will be your basis for the pricing range of the properties you should consider.
3. Partner With a Reliable Real Estate Professional. Real estate agents and brokers have access to information about houses and areas that isn’t readily available to the general public. Their understanding of the homebuying process, negotiation abilities, and familiarity with the neighborhood you wish to reside in will be incredibly beneficial.
4. Go House Hunting! Exhaust all available options to locate houses on the market. In addition to working with a real estate agent, you can search for listings online or drive around the neighborhoods you’re interested in for for-sale signs. Make some inquiries among your friends, family, and professional contacts. You never know who could have an excellent reference or lead on a house.
5. Make an Offer. Your real estate agent is instrumental in helping you determine the amount of money you want to offer for the property, as well as any conditions you choose to impose. After that, your agent will deliver the offer to the seller’s agent, who will accept it or propose a counteroffer.
6. Have the House Inspected by a Third-Party Service. After your offer has been accepted, schedule a home inspection. You should contact a competent, third-party home inspector to check the home you’re about to purchase. The house inspection is a crucial stage since it will reveal places where substantial repairs or renovations are needed right away and any future work that has to be done.
7. Have the Home Appraised. If you’re seeking a mortgage to buy a house, your lender will want to have the house assessed before releasing your cash. You need an appraisal to know the house’s actual value based on recent sales in the area, market trends, public documents, and a thorough survey of the property.
8. Close the Sale or Move On. If you could reach an agreement with the seller—or, better yet, if the inspection revealed no significant flaws—you should be ready to close. Closing entails signing many papers in a short amount of time while hoping that nothing goes wrong at the last minute.

Home Buying With Mortgage City

While the homebuying process might be perplexing, this guideline can assist you in navigating it successfully. If you’re still unsure about any of the steps, we’ll be delighted to chat with you.

If you’re a first-time home buyer in Michigan, Florida, and New Hampshire, Mortgage City is the right financial partner! We are committed to helping you fulfill your goals of moving into your first home. To learn more about our loans, call (248) 930-8709 today!