"Suzy Flute is the perfect realtor for the first home buyer. She thoroughly checks the properties for you after she interviews you for your preferences, price range, and location. She guided me through the whole process with ease" Kim Bauer, 1st time homebuyer
Where to Begin the Home Buying Process
Here's a summarized 5-STEP process to getting into a new home. Contact us directly if you would like us to go over these steps in more details.
Credit Clean-Up - Begin getting your credit in order several months to a year in advance of shopping for a home. It is very disappointing to start shopping for a house to find out that blemishes on a credit report may not allow you to purchase the house of your dreams. You are legally entitled to one free credit report from each of the three major credit reporting agencies: Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. You can request your credit report off of www.annualcreditreport.com . It would be in your best interest to know what is on your credit report before approaching a lending institution. You could then "clean-up" or take care of any problem reporting or errors. Keep your large credit purchases to a minimum (if any at all) for a period of time before going to a lending group. That can cause your "FICO" credit score to go down which is how lenders base your interest rate. The lenders use a lot of factors that go into this FICO score. If there is something on your credit report that is affecting this FICO score, you can possibly take care of it prior to getting any loans. Work with a credit clean-up company if the process is too confusing to go it alone.
Finding a Lender - Find a good, legitimate lender and get pre-approved. Legitimate lenders include: banks, mortgage banks, credit unions, mortgage brokers, and online lenders. Do research before going to the lender on the best loan for you and have an idea of how much ultimately you would like to spend per month on your mortgage. Most lenders will "pre-qualify" you over the phone or on-line. They will even go so far as to issue you a pre-qualification letter. However, this does NOT mean that you are "pre-approved." Pre-approval means that you have gone through an actual loan application, had a credit report pulled by the lender, and had your employment status and assets verified by a lender. At this point, the lender will give you an approval of an exact maximum amount on the loan. This "pre-approval" status will give you more positioning with a seller over a person who just has a "pre-qualified" status. At the time that you do actually find your Dream Home, you want the better advantage status.
Find a Real Estate Agent - Look for a real estate agent that makes you feel comfortable. You will be spending time with this person while you are looking around at different houses. You will want someone who can check the market for you to make sure you are not paying too much for a home. You want someone who is willing to negotiate on your behalf. You must give this person a complete description of what your "Dream Home" would look and feel like so that it can make your "shopping" more simple and more effective. You will want to look into signing a "buyer's representation agreement" with this agent which ensures that the agent is only working in your best interests. The misconception is that signing this agreement will cost you something. The agent will still get paid by the seller, but by signing the agreement, the agent is now obligated to work and negotiate for your interests.
Go House Shopping! - You have now reached the fun part of real estate, the actual shopping for a home. After describing your "Dream Home" to your real estate agent, she/he should provide you with a list of viable properties in the area you selected that are similar to what you described.
Find Your Dream Home! - Now, you are ready to make an offer. Your real estate agent should educate you on the entire process once you find the property that you fall in love with. The real estate agent can negotiate for the best deal for you. Hopefully, with a carefully thought out and well-timed offer, the seller will accept the offer and you will be under a contract for the home of yours dreams!
Now, sounds simple, right! Well, it is a long process, but a good real estate agent can help ease some of the bumps that come with making one of the biggest purchases that you will ever make! Please fill out an information sheet if you are interested in talking to a real estate agent from this office.
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