What Questions Can I Answer?
Finding the perfect house and winning in a competitive market on your own is not easy - choose the agent you can trust.
So, you want to buy a house—now what? The first time buying a home is an emotional, exciting, and also exhausting experience. You may also be wondering — what am I missing? This is a common question. Here’s how the buying process works from start to finish.
- Do some preliminary online searching. Check into what homes are selling for in the areas you’re interested in to give you an idea of what you’re looking for. This will help later on when communicating your wish list with me, your real estate agent.
- Get pre-approved. To get pre-approved for a mortgage you’ll need to get some paperwork ready: pay stubs, W-2s, bank account statements, tax returns for the past two years, and credit lines, and names and addresses of your landlords for the past two years. I have great lenders I've worked with (some even personally) who I'd be happy to connect you with. Just let me know!
- Look at homes. Be patient at this stage. You will be able to see everything that is available on the market in real-time with the portal I'll set up for you. We'll tour homes together, and you can visit open houses whenever you like. Together we'll find the perfect home!
- Make an offer. Once you’ve found your dream home, we'll need to move quickly. I will guide you on a competitive offer based on market conditions, demand, etc.
- An accepted offer. Pop the champagne! If you reach an agreement, you’ll make a deposit to an escrow account to show good-faith. You'll now start working more closely with your chosen lender to get the process started on their end.
- Do a home inspection. Even if the home appears to be flawless, there’s no substitute for having a professional inspector review the property for quality, safety, and general condition of your potential home. You don’t want to be surprised with a home that needs a lot of unexpected repairs. If the inspection reveals undisclosed serious defects, you can negotiate further to have the seller make repairs or discount the selling price. This is a very important contingency so we will work closely during this time.
- Closing. When your lender has completed their underwriting process and has given you the "clear to close" we'll set a time to go through all the paperwork with the lender and the title company. Once you're done, you will be a homeowner!