Decided to Buy A Home? What Comes Next?

There is a lot that goes into the process of buying a home.  It can be overwhelming, especially if you’re a first time buyer.  To help you know what you’re in for, we’ve got a list of 16 steps to buying a new home.

1. Find a Realtor – It’s important to find a Realtor who understands your need and can help you find what you’re looking for.  Make sure they’re knowledgeable about the area and the steps of the buying process (and willing to explain them).
2. Decide What You’re Looking for – Figure out what you can spend.  Your first stop may be to meet with a lender to see what you’re qualified for.  There’s nothing worse than spending time, finding a house, and not being able to get financed.  Also, just because you’re qualified for a certain amount, doesn’t mean you have to spend that amount.   Figure out where.  Think about schools, resale value, amenities.   Figure out what.  How many rooms? Bathrooms? Yard Size? Style? etc.
3. Get a pre-qualification letter from a lender – You will typically need this in order to write an offer.
4.  Start Looking at Homes with your Realtor – Now for the fun part! Start looking online and have your Realtor find homes for you to tour that the criteria that you’re looking for.
5. Make an Offer – Be sure you know what all the documents are, and if you don’t know, ask.  That’s part of the reason you have a Realtor. To make an offer, you’ll need your pre-qualification letter and a check for the deposit.  (Be sure this is what you want. Once the ball is rolling, you can’t just change your mind and you will need a valid reason to break the contract. )
6. Seller Responds – Now you wait to see if they accept your offer.  If they accept, great!  On to the next step.  If not, they may counter offer.  Which means, you will have to decide if you’ll accept the counter.
7. Counter Offer or Acceptance – Either counter back, or accept.  This can go on for a while sometimes.  Know your limits and know when you need to walk away.
8. Apply for a Loan – Once the offer is accepted, you can apply for your loan.  You can go back to the lender with whom you were pre-qualified.
9. Open Escrow – What does this mean?  Basically, it means starting the closing process on the property.  You can order inspections and hand over your deposit to  you escrow company.
10. Schedule Inspections – Inspections are optional,  but may be required by your lender.  The costs of inspections are covered by the buyer.
11. Present a Repair Addendum – If the inspections reports things that need to be fixed, you will present a repair addendum to the seller.  Your Realtor can help you with this.
12. Ensure Repairs are Finished by the Completion Date and Wait for the Bank Appraisal – During the repair addendum, you’ll decide what that date is.
13. Sign the Loan Documents
14. Schedule Closing/Signing at Escrow Office – This is where you’ll sign all of the remaining documents.  There will be a lot.
15. Loan is Funded – After all that signing, your lender will fund the loan. Once you receive confirmation that your loan has been funded, you get the keys!
16. The Home is Yours – Congratulations!  Now it’s time to get moving!

If you buy or list a home with DeFoor Realty, we’ll be there every step of the way to help you get through and understand each step of the home buying process.