Know Your Financing- It can be exciting beginning the search for your new home, but many people forget that before they start looking at houses, they need to know how much house they can afford. Your first step is getting pre-approval with a lender. The pre-approval, or pre-qualification is the process of reviewing your financials in order to determine the size of loan you qualify for. After you know your qualification amount, you can decided on a budget based on how much money down you will need for the loan, and the monthly payments you can afford to make. Know that you know your budget, you can give your realtor a budget and they can begin a search of home’s for you.
Find A Pro Agent- What I often see is people choose to work with the first realtor they come across. What they do not realize is that purchasing a home is most likely the biggest financial decision of your life. You need to have a professional in your corner, for a variety of reasons. So spend extra time trying to locate who are the leading realtors in your area. You want someone that is experienced, but also someone that is easy to work with and has a good reputation with other agents and title companies. This will help ensure that the home buying process goes really smooth for you. Also, this agent will be the key in helping you find your dream home. They will be the one closely monitoring the market to make sure when your dream home shows up, you're the first people there and the first to make an offer. I suggest using Zillow’s agent finder in helping you locate some good agents.
Know What You Want- Some people stumble upon their dream house without much trouble at all. But for most of us, it’s not that easy. In reality, your dream home is most likely going to be another person's dream home. There are only so many of those “dream homes” on the market that have many of the features people are looking for. So it’s important that you narrow down a list of things that you can and can’t live without in a home. Be realistic about this. It may take looking at several houses before you're able to narrow this list down. But when you have this list, it will help you be more decisive when you come across a house that could be “the one”. It’s hard to find what you are looking for, when you honestly don’t know what you're looking for.
Be Ready To Act Fast- After a matter of time, your going to drive up to a house with a giddy feeling in your soul. “Wow, what a nice looking house!” you tell yourself as you walk into the next home of your dreams. When you do find “the one”, you have to be ready to act fast. This is where the other 3 tips play a vital role. You have your financing in order (and you're going to have to submit this with your offer in order for your offer to be taken seriously), you have a sharp realtor that is going to be Johnny on the Spot and get your offer in ASAP. And, you were able to recognize that home is your dream home because you had made a list of the most important characteristics.
Best of luck :)
