Simone Spotlight | Home Buying Process
Home Buying Process
october 2nd
The Homebuying Process
So you want to buy a house? The process may seem daunting, but the truth is that when you have clarity on how to achieve your goals, achieving them no longer seems like an insurmountable task.
Today’s blog breaks down the home buying process into simple steps to help you plan and execute it.
Before solidifying your plan there are a few things you may want to consider.
Will you be financing or are you buying all cash? This makes a difference in the process.
If you need or want a loan, you will want to sit down with a mortgage lender to get pre approved and go over the different types of mortgage available to you.
You do not need to buy a home at the maximum amount you have been pre approved for, consider what your mortgage payments will be and the lifestyle you want to have.
Steps to buying a home:
Representation
Once you have your pre approval, you will want to meet with real estate agents and hire a buyer’s agent to represent you. Hiring a buyer’s agent costs you nothing and you want someone in your corner to help you with the process.
Priority List
It is important to have realistic expectations when buying a property. We all have a wishlist, but we may not get all of the things on our list, that is why it’s important to have a priority’s list. What features must the house have for you to buy it? What are attributes that would be nice to have, but you can live without? It’s important for you to tell your real estate agent what matters to you so they can find homes for you with those features.
Find Your Home
Once you have sat down with your real estate agent they will create an online search that will send you emails with properties that match your criteria. You can see the properties with your agent or go to the open house. The most important thing to remember is that in a seller’s market there are more buyers than properties available. Therefore you should look at the list of homes and see the ones you like best first.
Submit an offer
Once you find the home you like, have your agent write up an offer. At the stage you
want to lean in on the expertise of your agent and consider the price, and terms that
they think will best help you get the property under contract. Their knowledge of
comparable sales, negotiations and relationships with agents is an asset to you, and
is essential during the offer process.
Offers will have one of 3 results. The offer will be accepted, rejected or countered. If
your offer is accepted then you move on to the next step. If it’s rejected your agent
can find out why it’s rejected and you can try to renegotiate or move on. If your offer
is countered, have your agent negotiate on your behalf until you arrive at terms that
both you and the seller agree on.
Once your Offer is accepted and you are Under Contract
This is when the ticking clock begins. You have deadlines that you have to meet or
you will need to extend which could have an impact on your closing date.
You want your real estate agent to schedule a home inspection as soon as possible,
even though you are given an allotted time, it’s best to do it sooner rather than later.
Once you get the home inspection report back you may want to negotiate with the
seller depending on what items come up.
Purchase and Sale
Once you are happy with the negotiations after the home inspection you move on to the purchase and sale agreement. At this stage the mortgage lender will work with you to apply for the actual loan of the property. They will need financial documents from you to submit the loan to underwriting and a home appraisal will be conducted before the loan is approved. Once the home is approved you are ready for closing.
Closing
Once the loan is approved, everyone typically comes to the signing table to sign the contracts, the final payments are made and you will receive your keys.
Note that buying a home requires a team. It typically consists of you, the buyer, your real estate agent, your mortgage lender and your attorney. Other notable people in this process are home inspectors, and home insurance representatives.
If you have any questions on this process feel free to contact our team!
You can read more about Simone’s process and schedule and send her a message by clicking on this link.