HOMEBUYERS: THE VERY FIRST STEP YOU NEED TO TAKE

You have worked hard, saved the money, and know where you want to lay down your roots. Now it's officially time to buy a home! So what exactly is the first step you should take?

Talk to a lender & get a pre-approval in hand. As fun as it is searching for homes listed on Zillow, you'll want to hold off on this until you see what you qualify for. It's not so fun saving your dream home to your favorites list only to find out it's way out your comfort zone payment-wise. There are 3 reasons why having a pre-approval in hand in extremely beneficial to you.

1. You get to see real numbers and figure out your max shopping price. During your conversation with the lender, they'll be able to take the number you're comfortable paying monthly and work backwards to figure out your max purchase price. This allows your realtor to narrow down the home search so you're not wasting any time looking at houses way under or over your budget.

2. You have to have a pre-approval letter to submit an offer. Say you do find the perfect house and you want to make an offer on it before another buyer gets it, but you haven't actually sent in the required documentation to your lender. You will lose out on the opportunity because sellers won't entertain an offer from a buyer who hasn’t been pre-approved. Depending on how long it takes you to gather the necessary documents, a pre-approval can take a couple days or longer. Having your pre-approval in hand makes you a prepared buyer which all sellers want to see. Don't risk losing the perfect home by being unprepared.

3. Get your questions answered early & feel confident. The biggest question people want to know when buying a home is "how much will this cost me?" and I don’t nt blame them! I personally wouldn’t want to make one of the biggest financial purchases of my life without knowing how much it's coming out of my pocket at the end of the day. This is why sitting down with a lender and going through the costs of purchasing a home is SO important to do before you actually start looking at homes.

As a buyer, you do NOT pay realtor fees, however, you are required to pay closing costs in addition to your down payment. It is a very good idea to shop 2-3 lenders so you can compare their rates/fees and see who you feel most compatible with. If you need a lender referral, contact me and I will happily refer you to a few lenders I've worked with that I know and trust.

NOTE: In addition to contacting your lender, reach out to your realtor if you haven't already and let them know you are starting the pre-approval process so they can prepare your home search.

Happy Home Shopping!