10 Most Important Steps To Buying A House – Own Your Dream Home!

The year 2019, is still ripe, and you’ve got a higher chance of owning that duplex, bungalow or mansion of your dreams. All you’ve got to do is get yourself a glass of wine and digest our steps to buy a house.

It’s true that owning a house is better than renting. Apart from being at your landlord mercy, when it comes to housing repairs, the same amount paid as rent for a decade is enough to reduce 1/3 of your debt on a 30-year home mortgage by considerably making the payments to yourself instead of a landlord. Isn’t that appalling? But as simple as it is, if you don’t know the relevant steps to buy a house and the rudiments of buying a house checklist— reaching the ultimate goal might be very difficult.

According to Suze Orman, “Owning a home is a keystone of wealth – both financial affluence and emotional security.”

Below are the 10 steps to buy a house and guide to buying a house checklist;

1. Consult Reliable Sources for Real Estate Listings

Sources like Realtor.com, Trulia, and Zillow  have enough real estate listings. Familiarize yourself with real estate websites, magazines, and newspapers. Doing this would give you a sense of housing trends  and asking fee in your neighbourhood.

2. Know Your Buying Limit

It’s not advisable to purchase a house you can’t afford. Choose a house that’s not more than 3-5 times your yearly household income, peradventure your aim is to pay a 20% downtime payment. To make this more perfect, use an Affordability Calculator to calculate the amount you can afford.

3. Try to Get Prequalified for Mortgage

Consult your mortgage banker, as regards how much the mortgage company can lend you. They’ll require you to provide some financial information, like your income, savings and the worth of your investments. Then your mortgage banker would review these information and reveal the amount they can lend you. This information will guide you while selecting your desired house.

4. Consult a Reliable Real Estate Agent

Real estate agents are key players in the process of buying a house. Part of their functions is to provide you with relevant information on housing listings, which isn’t readily accessible to a layman. Also, they help negotiate deals and speed up the buying process. Getting a real estate agent costs next to nothing– they’re rewarded from the commission paid to the seller of the house.

5. Find Your Desired House and Make an Offer

According to your price range, shop for your new home. While doing that, note their features and differences. You might want to take a camera along with you, just in case you need to take pictures or videos. House features such as the state of the shower, toilet, electric switches, doors and windows are noteworthy. Some other factors you might want to consider are; maintenance of other homes on the block, amount of traffic the street gets, parking space, schools, shopping centres, and public transportation. After you’ve found the right home, your real estate agent would be responsible for negotiation. Once there’s an agreement between the buyer ad the seller, the house will go into escrow. Thereby giving the seller the time required to conclude all other steps.

6. Hire a Home Inspector

Inspecting the house is very important. It reveals faulty structures and protects your interest. If there’s anything that requires repair, you can renegotiate the offer or halt it without any consequence. Most times, your real estate agent is responsible for the arrangement of the inspection. The report of the home inspector’s findings is provided to both the buyer and the seller. You’re also required to confirm the inspector’s claim before buying the house.

7. Get A Loan

Contact your mortgage banker, in order to choose from the wide range of loan programs available. Communicate with your bank, get the facts right and ask for a loan. Whether your plan is to keep your monthly payments as low as possible or make sure  your monthly payments never increase, most banks have the perfect loan program for you.

8. Get the Home Appraised

Your bank is going to provide an appraiser, which is a member of a third party company. The appraiser’s work is to intimate all party, as regards the actual worth of the house.

9. Supervise the Coordination of the Paperwork

There’s a lot of paperwork involved in the purchasing of a house. The bank is going to take responsibility for the coordination and verification of ownership of the house.

10.  Close the sale

To close a deal, you’ll have to append your signature on a lot of documents. Usually, after closing the sale, bank loans take a couple of day before its been funded. You’ll become the owner of your new home, once the seller is funded by your bank.

Conclusion

You’ll notice that the most steps are anchored by a real estate agent. Once the real estate agent isn’t functional, a lot of things could go wrong. Make sure you get yourself an efficient, reliable and well established real estate agent.