What do you need to do before you buy a home?

Buying a home is a complicated yet an exciting process especially if you are a first-time buyer. You think you are ready to buy a home, but do you have the knowledge you need when buying a home? There are many things to keep in mind while undergoing this big step of your life. In this article, I wrote some valuable tips you can use to make the home buying experience easier for you.

Credit History

Most likely you would need to get a mortgage to buy a house right? Then you must make sure that your Credit History is clean as much as possible. Before starting your home search, get copies of your credit report and make sure that everything is correct and fix any problems if there is one.

Don’t buy Stuff you Can’t Afford

This makes a lot of sense right? Rule of thumb is you need to look for a home you can really afford. You can buy a house that runs about two-and-one-half times your annual salary. To better handle your income, expenses and debts about this issue, you can use some mortgage calculators that are available online and it’s for free!

Look for a good School District

Who wants to send their kids into a mediocre school? Even if you don’t have school-age kids as of the moment, top priority of many home buyers is a good school district (if time comes you want to sell your house). Having a good school district increases your home value.

Get Pre-approved

By getting pre-approved, your home search would be easier. This gives you an advantage because you can narrow down the list of homes which you can afford. This is also gives a good impression to home sellers because they know that you have the means on financing the house. A home seller does not want to sell their home to people who just promise that they have the ability to pay right?

You also need help

Internet can be very helpful to you when it comes to your home search because of the vast numbers of listings available online. However, a buyer agent can be a very good help especially when it comes to creating strategies on how you can buy your dream house for the price that you want. In addition, here at The Akkus Group we can give you leverage when it comes to searching for homes because we can give you a list of houses which is not yet in the market. With this kind of advantage, we can guarantee that it will be much easier for you to look for your dream house. This is how we give VIP treatments to our valued clients.

Do a research before making an offer

Your offer should be based on the trend of sales of similar homes in the community. Ideal search would be homes that were sold 2-3 months ago. If homes that are recently sold at 5 percent less than the asking price, you should make an offer that is about eight to 10 percent lower than the seller is asking.

Inspection period

You should hire a home inspector, preferably an experienced engineer in the area that you are buying. The inspector’s job is to see if there are any hidden defects that could cost you. You can negotiate with the seller on who will take care of the repairs if needed.

These are just some pointers that you can keep in mind. There are lots of other processes you will encounter during the home buying experience. Home buying can be very daunting for first time buyers but The Akkus Group can help you on this process. We can make it easier for you because a dedicated team will be working diligently for you.