Home Buying Process
Starting your home buying experience can often be an overwhelming and stressful experience that takes a lot time. Often times Buyers have many concerns that may include questions about the current status of the market, pricing, the Buyer qualification process, mortgage broker referrals, interest rates, viewing homes, valuing homes, getting offers submitted and accepted, and closing the deal.
Our team makes sure that our clients, and any of our potential clients, understands the home buying process from start to finish. Our 10 step process summary will help you better understand the home buying process so you know what to expect which should make the process more enjoyable and less stressful for you. Our goal, whether you are a first time home buyer or experienced with purchasing homes, is to educate you not only on the basics of home buying, if needed, but to educate you on the current market ( and how it fits in within our current economic and real estate cycles), neighborhood options based on your needs, and price/value/feature considerations. With our support, education, and guidance, we will assist you in making an educated and confident decision on arguably the biggest purchase of your life…..your new home.
We prefer to do a “Meet and Greet” in person and create a needs and wants wish list for your new home.
Let’s connect and get to know each other a little before we start viewing homes! After you’ve read this document and you’re ready to work with our team lets meet for a Buyer Consultation so we can further discuss your home needs and wants. We will help you focus your search and determine the best possible price/value/feature solution.
1.) Pre-qualification
We will introduce you to one or two of the best mortgage partners we know. They will assist you in determining your home purchase price range. This is based your down payment and allowable monthly mortgage payment which is a percentage of your monthly income. You will be required to provide paperwork, in the form of pay stubs, W2’s, and/or tax returns. The lender will do a full review and then tell you how much you can borrow for the purchase of a home. This is a critical step in the home buying process!
2.) Your home needs and wants
Based on the pre-qualification we will have a discussion about weighing your home needs and wants with your desired and potential home purchase price range. Our team will ask you more about your purchase timeline and how long you plan to stay in your new home.
3.) Market Conditions, etc.
This is also a good time to discuss any questions about the overall market, different neighborhoods /cities, area commute options, etc. We will discuss the current market inventory with you as well as typical listing days on market, List price Sale price ratios, and how they impact your home buying efforts.
4.) Listing alerts sent to you based on your criteria
Once we’ve become more familiar with each other and your home search criteria we can begin to send you notifications about the listings that you are likely to find interesting. This is when you tell us what you like or dislike about any of the listings and which ones you’d like to see. We are happy to do a preview, with video, on any properties that you are not sure about. Often time we visit properties for clients to preview the home and save time for our clients. We are here for you every step of the home buying process!
5.) Schedule viewings and attend open houses
This is the fun part! We get to socialize with you and have fun looking at homes. We’ll go together to open houses and scheduled viewings of the homes that you are most interested in from the available listings we’ve sent you. We are happy to show you as many or as few homes as if comfortable for you.
6.) Find the perfect home and write an offer
Once you’ve found a house you are excited about and want to make an offer we will assess from you how much you want the home. At that point we will offer our professional advice on the best strategy to get your offer accepted. We will complete a written home purchase offer for your signature and present the offer to the seller. Typically, the seller will have any offer response within 24 hours. Sometimes short or longer responses can happen. The seller could accept, reject, or present a counter offer. Often our offers will be among the top offers in a multiple offer situation in the event that the seller has multiple buyers submitting offers. We will best guide you through each of these scenarios and how best to handle them. Once the offer is accepted we are off to the races.
7.) Offer Acceptance, appraisal and inspection
The sellers accepted your offer. Hurray! We will now need to notify our mortgage broker asap so the broker can order the appraisal and we can schedule any inspections as needed. The appraiser will come out to measure the property and document property condition. The appraiser will determine a value of the property so the lender knows there is sufficient collateral for the purchase loan. Any property inspection reports completed will be submitted to you for review and approval. Assuming you are obtaining a loan and completing inspections and both the appraisal and inspection are acceptable you will sign off on the loan and inspection contingencies. This is a green light for the next step!
8.) Schedule closing
Once the loan and inspection contingencies are signed off the next step is to schedule wiring your down payment to the title company, signing the final paperwork, and the closing.
8.) Pick up the keys to your new home
We will pick up the keys from the listing agent and arrange to meet with you to deliver the keys to your new home. Congratulations, the home is yours!!
9.) Review and Referral Request
We strive to educate our clients while providing the best service possible in an effort to assist you in making a well-informed confident decision with buying your home that you are happy and excited about. We want to get your feedback on our service, and would like your help in spreading the word about our service. Would you be willing to complete a review on us via Yelp, Zillow, and/or refer us to your friends and associates.
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