These are the 12 steps it takes to buy a home.
What are the 12 steps to buying a home?
- Hiring a professional full time real estate agent with at least 10 yrs experience. How do you find one? Referral from a friend, family member, co-worker or neighbor who recently had a great experience buying/selling a property.
- Getting pre-approved. Your real estate agent should be able to recommend a very reputable lender (mortgage broker or bank). During the pre approval process you want to determine your max purchase price (so you are comfortable with your monthly payment).
- Housing Criteria – Discuss with your agent area’s you would like to live, home size – detailed features and must haves for your home.
- Physically looking at homes (within 24 hrs of coming on the market).
- Writing offers and getting acceptance.
- Open escrow – what is escrow? A neutral third party which oversees the agreement between buyer/seller and holds the money on behalf of the parties.
- Lender orders appraisal to determine the value of the property. Typically they are lending hundreds of thousands of dollars and want to make sure if you default (not make your payments) they can sell their home on the open market and recoup their money.
- Home Inspection – determine the overall condition of the property (ie roof, foundation, electrical, plumbing).
- Request for repairs/credits. For example, if the home comes with an AC unit and it’s not working, this is a legitimate request for repair. Or a roof is leaking – legitimate request for repair or credit to get fixed.
- Sign loan docs with the lender.
- Final walk through of the property. You and your real estate agent make sure the property is in the same condition as when the agreement was made between you and the seller. Check to see if the repairs were completed properly by the seller.
- Close of escrow – CONGRATULATIONS!!
