Are you Ready to Buy a House? 7 Steps to Owning Your 1st Home | Buying your first house requires a lot of time and effort. Given that it is considered one of the greatest milestones you would embark upon, it is no surprise that it proves to be very exhilarating. It is a big commitment and chances are that it would be the biggest purchase you ever get to make. You need to be armed with the right information so that you can do the house shopping, apply for a mortgage loan if you would need one, and then make your purchase. Here are some important steps to follow towards owning your first home.
Determine how much a house you can afford
This usually depends on how you want to buy your house. If you wish to buy it outright from your savings, then you just need to save up for your dream apartment but if you plan on making a down payment and paying the rest over some months, then you really need to do the right calculations. Most of the people who buy houses do that off mortgage loans. Lenders generally advise that if you plan to put a 20% down payment on your house of choice, then that house shouldn’t cost more than three to five times your annual household income. You can use affordability calculators to determine what price range you should be looking at.
Start your search on time
Once you have been able to determine how much a house you can afford, you can start doing your search to find that perfect home. Start reading websites, magazines, and newspapers that have real estate listings on them. You can take note of the particular ones that catch your fancy. Note any changes in asking prices and how long they stay on the market. This will give you an idea of trends in specific areas. If you prefer to save yourself all the stress, you can visit the land and estate platforms. If you use the right platform such as Lotmix, it would further guide you in your house hunting especially when you want to buy your first home. You can easily find land estates on Lotmix after visiting their online platform and seeing pictures of options as well as their prices.
Tidy up your finances for the mortgage loan process
After locating the perfect choice of apartment for your first home, all your efforts could turn out to be a waste if you are termed not qualified to access a mortgage loan. To be sure that you are financially ready, you need to have a good credit score, cash to close and a verifiable source of income to qualify for a mortgage loan. So you should even have this sorted out before you start to look for house options.
Shop for loans and choose the best payment option
You can go for a short-term loan or a longer one. It all depends on which one would be easier for you in the long run. If you are going for 15 years to 20 years term, you will pay more per month but the lump sum will be given to you at a lower rate. If you are going for a 30-year term, you will be given the loan at a higher rate but you will get to pay less per month than when opting for 15 or 20 years. Most lenders prefer it when you go for the longer term because they get to charge you a higher rate even when it seems things are easier for you with the lower repayments per month.
Make an offer for your home
After getting approval for your credit, you can make an offer for your preferred house choice from your search. However, before making an offer, you will need to verify that all the electrical systems, plumbing works, windows, and doors are in good shape. You can check all other features in the house to make sure that they are functioning properly. Then, you should also check how far your prospective new home will be from your office or kids’ school if you already have kids attending a day school. Do you think the kids will be happy changing schools because of the new distance? Is there always heavy traffic if you have to go to the office or take your kids to school? Can you easily do your shopping around? What about hospitals for regular check-ups. You can also make inquiries about how secure the area is. Make sure you are very comfortable with the new home before making an offer for it.
Request a home inspection
Once you have found a home you would like and the offer you have made looks good to go, you will need to pay for a thorough inspection of the home. This will help you find out if there are other underlying problems that only professional home inspection agents can help you identify. These could be mold, termites, or foundation problems. It could even be a bad roof that needs replacement. This move will save you a lot of repair costs if you find out before time. It could even help you do a re-negotiation of the initial offer you had made to them if you may need to do those repairs yourself.
