BUYING YOUR HOME-
Buying your home whether it is your first home or second home, it is one of the most expensive items that you will spend in your lifetime.
There are FIVE critical steps towards BUYING YOUR HOME
#1: Why do you want to buy a home?
#2: Work with a good realtor
#3: How much of a home can you afford?
#4: What do you want in a home?
#5: Where do you want to buy your home?
Let us elaborate on these further
#1 Why do you want to buy a home?
To answer this questions, you need to sit with your family and come up with few good reasons. This will help drive a number of your thinking and decision when you are ready to shop. Most of the answers my clients have told me: I do not want to rent, I want my kids to go to a good school; my friends have told me that buying a home is a good thing, etc., Whatever the reason be, take the time to discuss and answer this question.
#2 Work with a good realtor
A good realtor plays a significant role in guiding you with one of the most expensive purchases in your lifetime. What makes a good realtor? There are four SIMPLE things you need to look for:
Are they working full time or part-time?
Do they have a website?
Do they have a social media presence, i.e., facebook, youtube, etc.,
Do they have customer reviews? You should look for at least 10 of them
#3 How much of a home can you afford?
A majority of home are purchased using mortgages and lenders play a vital role. Talk with your realtor, and they will refer you to a lender. These lenders will look at your income, liabilities, credit scores, etc., and provide you with a pre-approval letter. This letter will state how much money you can lend in addition to your down payment to purchase your home.
It also gives you the confidence as you shop for your home. It will let identify the downpayment, approximate closing costs, and the monthly mortgage payments.
#4 What do you want in your home?
You and your family need to know the number of bedrooms required, the number of bathrooms required, is a study room required, how many stories one or two, etc., I call these the structural aspects of the home. If you have the realtor identified they would help you guide through this process.
Let us say that you purchased a three bedroom and two bathrooms one story home. After a year you realize that you need an office room. Yes, you can add one, but it will be costly. Hence pay attention to the structural needs of your home.
Let us say you see a home and it meets your structural needs, but you don’t like the color of a room. It will cost a couple of hundred dollars to repaint the room. I refer these as non-structural aspects, and in most cases, these are cosmetic items, which are inexpensive.
#5 Where do you want to buy your home?
This about deciding the location of your home. Location is primarily driven by schools, safety, commute distance to work, HOA amenities, home price, etc., Once again a good realtor will be able to discuss different locations, subdivisions and help answer questions you might have.
To summarize, there are FIVE critical steps to owning your home. They are
#1: Why do you want to buy a home?
#2: Work with a good realtor
#3: How much of a home can you afford?
#4: What do you want in a home?
#5: Where do you want to buy your home?