5 Steps to Buying a House

The Housing market is hot and if you are going to have a chance at getting your offer accepted on your next purchase you need to follow these steps.

If you need help finding an agent in your area or if you just have some questions feel free to drop me an email [email protected]

Step 1 - Find a great Real Estate Agent. An active agent will be able to assist you in finding and negotiating your purchase. An experienced agent will know how to keep a deal together once you are under contract to make sure you have the best chance of closing on that dream home.

Step 2 - Find a lender. Your agent will most likely have a trusted lender or mortgage broker that they can introduce you to. The lender will pre-qualify you and let you know your max budget and an estimate on closing fees and monthly payments. If you are not paying cash you will need an excellent lender in your corner.

Step 3 - Get ready to make an offer. You might be thinking this is early in the game to be getting ready to make offers. However with how fast homes are selling you need to be ready to go. Get as many roadblocks out of the way as possible. Get your funds together, if you need to sell have your agent get your paperwork ready. I would also review a purchase contract now and get all your questions answered so that when you are submitting an offer you are not seeing this document for the first time.

Step 4 - Start looking. Your agent will probably set you up on a search and you can look as well. If your agent does a lot of business they may have some listings coming on the market soon that no one else knows about. I am sure you will be the first to know when they go live. Filter out as much as you can from your online search and try to limit to only seeing 4-5 homes in an outing. more than that they all blur together.

Step 5 - Make an offer! Listen to your agent if the home is new on the market and priced well now is not time to low ball. You will most likely need to come in at or above the asking price as most good homes will have multiple offers on them. Here are some tips to make your offer stand out in a multiple offer situation.

-Make a cash offer
-If you cant do cash more down payment is more appealing to a seller
-If you need closing cost covered increase your offer to cover the difference
-Increase your earnest money deposit
-Remove contingencies (you risk losing your EMD if you cant perform so use with caution)
-Don't ask for repairs -Include an escalation clause in your offer
-Start with your highest and best. You may not get a second chance

Once you make your offer is now in the seller's control to Accept/reject/or counter. Once you get under contract stop looking! That next house you see on Zillow is not better your mind is just playing tricks on you.

Mistake 1 - Trying to only work with the listing agent. Not only is this more time-consuming for you but there is no real benefit to you the buyer. You're not going to get a big discount on the purchase. In reality, you are just doing the job that an agent should be doing for you but without any experience or compensation.

Mistake 2 - Asking for a laundry list of repairs from the inspection. If you are going to ask for repairs just pick your top 3-4 that are most important. If you ask for more you risk the seller not wanting to do any.

Mistake 3 - Opening new credit lines before close. Don't get any new loans until your house closes. The lender can see when you get new credit inquiries and if the additional debt throws off your debt to income ratio they may decline to process your loan.

Bonus - Don't quit or change jobs during escrow. Lenders are doing additional verifications of employment. These changes could delay or end your home buying abilities.

To look for properties in the Idaho area go here: https://search.revistarealty.com/​​