Buying First House

Buying First House – Lay of the Land

For those buying first houses the landscape is the most interesting it has ever been. There are both tremendous opportunities and some surprising challenges for the first time house buyers today. That said, if you are a first time buyer today, you are in a tremendously strong position. You just need to get the information to help you leverage that fact.

Take a look at the Buying First House Video below, and then get all the information from this site to position yourself for success today.

With the extension of the $8,000 tax credit, suppressed pricing, and motivated sellers making for excellent buying opportunities. Balanced by sellers, fearful that appraisals will fail, and therefore unwilling to allow closing costs on contracts, combined with a high number of sales requiring third party approval from lenders, and skittish mortgage companies using ridged qualification requirements.

The most difficult thing, for well qualified, first timers to overcome is usually the limited ability to generate seller assistance with the contract. For those buying a first house the prospect using much, if not all of their cash on the purchase and closing costs, can be a little disconcerting.

Con’s of the current market:	Pro’s of the current market:
Many purchasers trying to buy the same houses Skittish home sellers, and mortgage lenders Challenges with appraisals and seller closing cost incentives	Lowest interest rates in decades Lowest prices in many years Federal tax credit of up to $8,000 Large inventory means significant choice Motivated sellers Cash-back from InsiderHomes.com

Buying first house has developed some basic check lists for success in your first home purchase. They follow:

Selecting your lender and your loan when buying your first house.

Generally, while it is good to determine how much you qualify for, it is seldom advantageous to select your lender ahead of the other parts of your purchase.
One of the biggest concerns we have for new buyers is that they seldom recognize that the lender does not, in fact, work for them. Nor is the lender in anyway interested in getting the buyer the lowest rate or best loan regardless of what she/he might say. The loan officer is a sales person for the mortgage investor. The mortgage investor pays the loan officer to sell loans to buyers and refinancers of home loans.
So rule number one is, the lender is not on your side. Shop the lenders rates and don’t give them any money until you are absolutely sure you want to work with that particular lender.

You can use this mortgage calculator to determine what mortgage amount you qualify for:

Mortgage Calculator Get custom loan quotes — anonymously Zillow Mortgage Marketplace Get this widget

Selecting your agent when buying a first house

While often regarded as a non-issue, agent selection is often one of the most important steps in home purchase.
Your “buyer agent” or “buyer broker” is the one person in your corner through-out the home buying process. The reason that these terms are in quotes is that not every agent or broker that shows you a property is on-your-side. In fact, unless you have a signed buyer agreement, most are working for the seller! The point here is to make sure that you never view a property or enter into a discussion with any agent or broker who has not already signed an active, binding agreement to represent your best interests. Before you enter into that contract we would strongly suggest taking the following steps:

• Interview the agent or broker
• Ask how many years of “local experience” they have
• Ask them how many properties they have sold
• Require that they provide you proof of their production – Usually, an agent or broker can simply pull a list of properties they have sold from the local MLS
• Ask them exactly what they will be doing for you when they represent you and make sure you are comfortable with the answer

At very least the agent should be willing to:

• Show you the properties you are interested in viewing
• Evaluate the property from the prospective of reselling when you tour it
• Help you research the comparable prices of properties that are similar to the ones you are ready to write an offer on
• Write offers and make amendments to navigate your successful negotiation and ratification of a contract on your property of choice
• Help you through the executory period (from ratification to settlement); including home inspections, walk-through, and amendments to the contract
• Attend settlement to ensure a smooth closing

Selecting your new home and buying first house

So this is focus of almost everyone who is buying a first home, and it is important. Interestingly, now that you have positioned yourself with the knowledge of what you can afford and brought on an educated and experienced broker, you will find that the rest of the process becomes fairly easy.

First, you can usually search for your home on-line. Usually, the best place is the broker search site provided to you by the agent or broker you are working with, but if they don’t have one, you could use a third party search like Vast.com. Remember, if the information is consistently dated, find another site. Sites with old data are generally designed only to make an agent phone ring, not to help you find your best deal on a home.

Second, be sure to drive the neighborhoods you are looking at to make sure they are everything you are looking for in an area to live. For instance, you might want to make the drive to work from the potential neighborhood to see how long it takes to get to work (in rush hour). You may want to visit the area on a Saturday evening, to see if the development has adequate parking, or to chat with some of the neighbors to see how they like the area.

Once you have become familiar with the neighborhood, and found some listings of interest on-line, its time to request a tour from your agent. We suggest seeing no more than 5-7 homes at a time before reviewing the list seen and deciding what should be short listed and what should be dropped from your list of potentials. Try to keep the list of potentials to 3 or less at all times.

Once you find a property that you are ready to make an offer on, let your agent or broker know. She/he will do some research for you and provide you with a comparison of your home of choice with recent sales in the area – Affectionately called, a CMA or Competitive Market Analysis, in the industry. This will help you set your offer price, but remember to consult your agent before committing to any offer price. Listen to everything she/he can share with you. There is generally as much art as science in the formulation of a good offer, so experience is king here. Never be worried about passing up a property that doesn’t meet your needs or of writing an offer for a home that do meet your needs.

Once you have a written agreement, the main thing is to stay open minded to any potential counter and weigh the impact on your goals and plans. Too many people allow the negotiation process to become an emotional process. You can often use this to your advantage, if you stay emotionally detached from the process. (There will be plenty of time to love your new, after the negotiations are over.)

A fully ratified contract is the beginning of the negotiation period. Often there will be additional rounds of negotiation from the home inspection, appraisal, and walk-through on the property. Stay focused and calm, and you will win the day.

Settlement should feel like a simple formality. A time to sign final documents, get copies of the keys to your new home, and shake the sellers’ hands as you leave to start the latest phase in your cool life, as a new home owner.

Making your best deal buying your first house now and on every deal you ever do:

We have partnered with Insider Homes who connects their members with top agents, the additional cash rebates, and massive consumer control on their transactions. There is a short video about these benefits below:

There are many important things to determine before a decision is made about buying first house.