How To Buy Your First House – Your first house you buy is something you remember for ever. It is how the meaningful part of your financial future starts, so it is not something you forget very easily.
This article is the second in the series on how to buy your first house. If you haven’t read the first one, please go back and review that now. You can read the first part of How to Buy Your First House here.
How To Buy Your First House
How To Buy Your First House
In the first part of this series, we discussed getting your financial house in order, getting a pre-approval from a lender, visualizing your home, and starting to visit the homes in your marketplace. These are great tips, but now it is time to continue down the path of learning how to buy your first house. Let’s dive right back into the discussion.
Make Plenty of Offers
You have to bid, bid, bid. It will give you a great feel of what is really possible in the marketplace and take the fear out of making an offer. You don’t have to accept the offer, even if the seller agrees. I just want you to get in the habit of bidding and negotiating for your house. This is very important, so you may as well get use to it.
Read More: Home Buying Bidding Strategy
Get a Home Inspection
This is a step I warn all buyers of houses. It can be residential, like your home, or commercial for investment. You need to pay the money to allow a home inspector to take a look at the property. They are skilled in examining the systems of the property to let you know if there is anything wrong with it.
You need this independent third party to operate because the seller will tell you anything to sell their property. You want a professional in your corner so you know exactly what you are getting yourself into when you buy your first home. Please allow the professionals to do their job and potentially save you money.
Close On your New House
Once you have settled on a home, successfully negotiated your purchase contract with the assistance of your Realtor and lawyer, you are ready to take it to the next step. Before the closing, the home inspect report and any repairs needed to be done must be complete along with the appraisal.
The appraisal is valuation of the property. An appraiser will make an assessment of the current market to let you and the lender know what the current market value of the property is worth. As long as your offer and acceptance are below this number, there shouldn’t be many more snags in the process before you become a home owner.
Something may arise, but this is why you have a lawyer on your team. They are there to ensure you are protected and everything works out correctly, not necessarily quickly. Purchasing a home is a major responsibility, so it must be done right.
After the closing, the lawyers will slide you a bunch of keys to your new home, the contract which you just executed, and you will be officially a home owner.
Remember the Cost of Maintaining a House
I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but someone has to inject some reality into your life. Buying a house can be very satisfying, but there is a lot of responsibility that comes along with it. You have to remember the cost of maintaining a home is much more than renting one or living in an apartment. You will have expenses and fees you more than likely have not considered before, so be prepared. Don’t go out and buy any and everything you can before you get a real sense of what the bills and expenses are like inside of your new house.
Read More: Cost of Maintaining a House
At this point, you are a new home owner with their very own house. It is a great feeling and one I genuinely hope you attain. There is nothing like it and home ownership is still at the heart of the American Dream as it should be. Just be sure to be smart during your process, don’t spend more than you have, and try to enjoy it every step along the way. – How To Buy Your First House
You mentioned on Yakezie forums that you would like a guest post from me. I have one for you titled “Problems with Real Investate Investing”. Please email me your email address so that I can send this to you.
Thank you for following up. I was travelling yesterday and meant to email you, but left out. will send it over now. The article sounds perfect for our group here.
I am planning to read all your articles before buying my new house. I will soon be in market
Excellent! Any time you have a question, just fire away at me. You can email me or inbox me that is fine. I owned a real estate appraisal company for 7 years, so that gave me some good insight into the purchasing process and behind the scenes.
I really admire the way you convey your ideas to your readers. You really have the talent. This is another excellent post. It was an easy read and yet managed to keep me reading till the very end.
Glad you enjoyed the article
Great article. And I fully agree that having a professional representing you in the purchase of a home is a necessity. But remember, negotiation during an offer is important. But more important is interviewing and negotiating your services with a Realtor. If you are lucky enough to find the right one then your going to win. If not, then your putting your money with someone who can cost you thousands during the buying process. So do your homework and get the best representation you can find. Also, are you aware that if you do most of the searching online and looking at open houses yourself that agents will cut you a break on closing costs by crediting you a Buyer Rebate? There’s lots of things you can learn about real estate before entering the market.
Sundaybell
Good points, Lee. Thanks for sharing. Having the right Realtor on your team is very important.
Buying your first home is one of the most overwhelming experience an individual could have. Some people say that your home represents who you are. So to completely enjoy the comfort of your first home make sure that it suits to your personal needs. And complement your lifestyle.
Thanks for sharing, Jason. You are so right. There is a lot to purchasing that first home!