Buying a Home

Buying a home is a big step whether it is your first home or maybe your last home that you wish to retire in. There are many steps to take and important decisions to make. My job is to make this entire process easier and less stressful for everyone involved. I will go over the steps involved so you will be prepared for every step.

• Pre Qualification. This step is one of the most important. When you get prequalified you, your buyer’s agent and the seller all know that you are ready and able to purchase a home. Most pre qualifications can be done over the phone with your lender. If you do not have a lender we can recommend some to you that we know to be reliable and easy to work with. Your lender will be able to tell you which type of loan will work best for you. This is important because not all homes qualify for every type of loan.( If you are wanting a 100% USDA loan then we don’t need to look at homes outside of the USDA areas) Things like this can help narrow your search and save a lot of time.

• Search Area and Home Features. Decide what features you need in your home( if you inherited your Grandmothers antique dining room set then a house with just a breakfast nook is not going to work, you need a formal Dining Room) How many bedrooms and bathrooms, do you want a garage, home office space, mother in law suite? Do you want waterfront or view, maybe close to shopping or a certain school? Do you want an HOA to take care of the lawn and what size yard do you need. Discuss these things with us and we will try to view homes that meet your needs and price range.

• Offer Process. Once you find the home you want the fun starts. We will write up the contracts. There is a lot of paperwork involved, agency agreements, offer to purchase, various addendums depending on the type of loan and the property involved. We will guide you through these and should explain what everything is for. Hopefully you and the seller will agree on a purchase price.

• Accepted offer. When you are under contract you will go into the due diligence period. This is the time to get your loan approved, get home inspections, surveys, etc. This period can be as little as ten days or even as much as a month or more. In most cases you pay for this time and during this period you can get out of the contract for any reason. If the due diligence period ends and you haven’t gotten your loan approval you could be in jeopardy of losing your earnest money if your loan doesn’t go through. This is a good reason to cooperate with your lender. Try to get them any documentation they ask for as quickly as you can. We will monitor this and try to get an extension of time if necessary.

• Home inspection, survey, well and septic inspections, etc. These should be accomplished during the due diligence period. We will help you with the timing of these and recommend competent professionals to get these things done.

• Home Warranty. If a home warranty is not provided by the seller we can recommend several reputable companies that offer them. Some Real Estate companies get paid by the warranty company to sell their policies. We don’t. We sell real estate not insurance.

• Utilities. We will provide you with a list of utility companies and service providers for your home area.

• Closing attorney. Your closing attorney will take care of getting you clear title and title insurance along with making sure all documentation is correct and that you understand what you are signing. We will accompany you to the closing and try to make sure that everything is correct at closing. The closing attorney will then record the deed with the county and at that point the home is yours and you can move in. This is usually a very happy time because most of the stress is now behind us.