Buying a house is #exciting, but buying a house is also #overwhelming. With the many steps involved with purchasing a house, this mostly exciting journey can quickly turn into a scary, overwhelming one. That's why this guide exists, to lay out a clear path for what to expect when purchasing a home.
When to sell
If you have a current house, you'll have to decide if you want to sell it before purchasing your new home or after you purchase your new home. There are plenty of benefits to both sides of the token, and that will be mentioned in another blog post, but before going down the purchasing journey you'll definitely want to know when you plan on selling your current home
Get Pre-qualified
When house hunting, you want to know exactly how much house you can afford. If you begin searching for houses before ever talking to your lender, you are blindly looking at houses.
The stories are common. A couple begins looking for homes, finds their dream home, and THEN get's pre-qualified only to have their hearts broken: they cannot receive a loan large enough for the house they spent so much effort looking for.
Step one is ALWAYS going to your lender, and getting pre-qualified to see what your budget is. Once you have that budget, you may begin your search.
Hire Chase Taake
Next on your list is 100% hiring Chase Taake to be your real estate agent, or at least hire A real estate agent. Not only do you need real estate agents to enter properties, but they can find properties that meet your criteria that might not be on Zillow or Realtor, and they can access information about the properties that are not available to the public. If you have Chase Taake as a real estate agent, you also get the added benefit of your home buying journey being super fun.
Outside of finding your homes, agents also play a huge role in the process. The agent will get the paper work, fill in the paperwork, negotiate the offer, advise you with expert opinions on prices to offer and what inspections to have, manage the entire transaction, and more.
Not only is the buyer agent nearly always FREE for the buyers since the sellers pay them, but skimping out on a buyers agent on average leads to a worse price tag for the buyers, and a very stressful 30-45 days.
House Hunt
Congrats on the pre-qual and the agent, now it's time to find that house. Talking to your agent, your agent will send you properties matching the criteria that you love, so be on the lookout for those emails. But these days, Zillow and Realtor are handy for the buyers so if you see one you want to see, let your agent know!
When house hunting, if furniture exists within the home, try to picture the house without the furniture. Too often buyers turn down homes because the ugly furniture, that won't even be there after the house is sold. Pay attention to everything, ask your agent any questions you have about the property, imagine yourself living in the home.
A great technique for buyers, since this can be overwhelming, is to do the process of elimination. Create a giant list of houses you semi-like. Go see them. Then cross off the houses you don't like until you have three left, from those three, pick one. This is the best way to feel satisfied with your choice. If you are stuck choosing from ALL the houses that exist, buyers get paralysis and never do anything, losing opportunities.
Put in the offer
Ay! You found one! Let your agent know you would like to place an offer and they will get the documents necessary. Think about what price you would like to offer while they get the documents ready. When everything is ready, the agent should either call you or have you in their office to go over the preliminary documents, like the documents about radon, dual agency, blah blah -- and then the contract.
In the contract, you will learn of all the items that are automatically included in the sale, and those that are excluded in the sale. You will let your agent know of what amount you would like to offer, and the agent also will provide their opinion (depending on what agency you have with the agent) on what price makes sense depending on the market.
Along with the purchase price, you will write the earnest money amount (which is basically posturing money, letting the sellers know you are serious) and when you expect to close. Other details are in the contract which you agent will explain when that time comes.
Once the offer is in, you wait until your agent informs you of the news: was it accepted, rejected, or are they trying to negotiate. Rejected means you go back to house hunted, negotiating means you have some thinking to do, and accepted means you move on to the next step
after acceptance
Immediately after acceptance, a couple things will have to be done. First is making sure your earnest money is sent to the closing company that was agreed upon within the contract, which your agent will guide you on. Next is calling your insurance letting them know you are buying a house, and ask if they need to check it out. And next, and probably most importantly, is getting the inspections scheduled that you want to have scheduled.
Inspections
Ah, inspections. The most fun time. (not). Immediately after acceptance, schedule the inspections you want to have done. Within the contract, and your agent will also inform you, you can find the inspections most frequently done. Termite inspections, surveys, radon, general, there are many. And each and every one is very important, because you absolutely want to know what you are purchasing.
If an environmental or structural defect is found, you automatically are allowed to pull out of the deal. You are not tied to purchase a house that is dangerous. However, any other defects and you are still tied to the deal, you simply have the right to renegotiate your terms.
My personal word of advise, take it easy. Ask the sellers to fix the things that are make it or break it, or at least the big items. Do not ask them to fix the chipped walls, or take the nails out of the wall. Ask for the broken AC to be fixed, and things like that.
Inspections are where deals frequently fall apart, sellers get emotional seeing the inspections, see all the defects with their sweet sweet home, and buyers get scared seeing all the defects with the home they're about to sink a massive amount of money into. Stay calm, ask for the worst to get fixed, make a plan for the other items, and understand that the inspectors are DEEP diving into things that typical people really don't notice.
Be fair with what you ask for, you are still in danger of the sellers saying no and allowing the contract to fall through. Just be ready for this phase of the process!
Closing
And, you did it. You made it past the mountain of documents and roller coaster of emotions, now you show up to the title company and sign away another mountain of documents to get your keys. Once you have the keys, the home is yours. Congrats!