Buying A Home
How we can make your dream home a reality.
Buying a home can be a fun and exciting experience — especially if it’s your first. But it’s likely the largest financial investment you’ll ever make, so you must be prepared. We use our finely honed skills to help you navigate the pathway to your dream home through these important home-buying phases:
Pre-Approval for a Home Mortgage.
When you begin shopping for a home, you must have assurance from lending institutions that you will be approved for a mortgage. All home sellers and their agents demand this assurance before they will seriously consider you as a buyer with financial backing. We encourage you to do a little homework to understand how much you can afford, and talk to a mortgage expert who will review your financial position and find the right kind of mortgage for you. There are many types of mortgages with different interest rates, down payment requirements, and payoff periods. Many mortgage consultants offer this service for free.
Our Dream Home Checklist
Everybody has their own priorities for choosing their dream home. By utilizing our Dream Home Checklist, we’ll help you organize and consider all the factors in identifying the right home for you. Beyond the number of bedrooms and baths you need, there are many other things to think about — including the school district, proximity to town and recreation, the type of neighborhood, etc.
Our Dream Home Checklist is a list of comprehensive questions that help you discover your values and priorities. As much time as you’ve given to driving around looking at what appeals to you from an aesthetic standpoint, there are questions in this survey we guarantee you’ve never considered. Your answers will give us the insight we need to determine how and where we begin to search the marketplace. Now we can go beyond just finding a house that looks nice, to discovering your dream home that fits you and your family’s lifestyle and priorities.
Offer and Contract.
We’ll work in partnership with you to negotiate the best price and terms for YOU. There are many factors that go into setting the right price — and sometimes more money isn’t necessarily the offer that will get you the house. Recognizing this can make the difference between getting that dream home, or losing it.
Home Inspection
Once your offer is accepted, we encourage you to have an inspection immediately. An inspection is valuable to the purchaser in understanding how their new home works. A general home inspection is fine, but generally there are a series of other consultations that will build your confidence in your purchase. Recognizing the difference between what’s ok to live with, and what’s not, can be a real deal breaker. For detailed information about home inspections and why it is so important to you, visit one of our favorite home inspector’s website, where they discuss the value of knowing the ins and outs of your new home. Or visit the American Society of Home Inspectors website for more information about home inspections and what’s involved.
The Closing
Once you have a signed contract, we’ll follow up all the way to closing to make sure everything goes as planned. Rarely does this occur seamlessly, so we help you manage complications as they arise. Because purchasing—and selling—a home can be an emotionally laden event, this is an area in which our negotiation skills are advantageous. Our years of experience have fine-tuned our instincts on when to be a tiger, and when to be a kitten. We finesse the details so you can sleep at night, knowing we are keeping your best interests at heart.
First Time Buyer?
We’ve found this site to be very helpful for new buyers. It gives you a comprehensive overview of all the issues you need to be educated on before making this most important investment of your life.
