Your Home Buying Checklist

For many, buying a home is one of the biggest personal and monetary decisions of your life. It can get very complicated, there’s a lot at stake, and a massive learning curve to overcome. What you need is a basic home-buying checklist.

There many steps and these include: 

• Figuring out what you can afford
• Getting pre-approved for a mortgage
• Searching for a new home
• Locating a realtor
• Visiting open houses and tours
• When ready – submitting an offer
• Hiring professionals to investigate the property
• Getting an appraisal
• Possibly renegotiating the asking price
• And closing the deal.

This is a rather long list with many tiny variables at each step. Rather than sending you into a panic, here is our first time home buyer checklist in depth. 

Determine your budget for buying a house

The first port of call on the checklist for buying a house is to really investigate the budget you can afford. 

Throughout this buying a-home checklist, information is key to success. Before looking at median home prices in the market, do an audit of your own internal financial affairs. 

First, be honest about your monthly income and don’t inflate it for your pride is just going to land you in trouble further down the line. Once you’re sure of your take-home pay after taxes, it’s time to review your monthly debts. 

These monthly expenses include your rough expenses on daily consumables, as well as: 

• Monthly payments on vehicles
• Insurance policies
• Health care plans
• And current mortgages on your property (or rental)

It’s always good to be honest with yourself about your finances. This is particularly true when it comes to your credit score. 

Unless you have access to a lump sum of cash and are looking for a quick purchase, you will need the bank's help.

And then include into the cost of the house, that there are going to be additional closing costs, which you’ll be liable for at the end of the deal. 

Finding out the median home prices in your area is fairly easy, with free online assets like City-Data. But be warned, these are only estimates and some sellers might be asking more for their homes for various reasons. 

Now that you have an understanding of your own financial situation it’s time to see if you can get a pre-approval on the amount you’re looking for. 

Get pre-approval for a mortgage

Of all the items on the buying a new home checklist, this might be the most daunting. Going into any type of financial institution and getting pre-approved is a process.

Getting the go-ahead from the banks, or pre-approval means that the lenders will review your income, expenses, and credit report. After reviewing this they will either agree to or reject your application for a loan. 

If everything goes smoothly you’ll be able to continue to the next step of searching for a home. 

But, what do you need to get to be approved by the lenders? 

You will need: 

• To provide proof of income
• Proof of the assets you own
• That you have a good credit score
• That you are employed currently
• And the usual identification documents

Finding the new home

Arguably the most entertaining aspect of the home buying process checklist is searching for a new home. 

We can assume that you’re most likely going to be surfing through a number of websites and their listings. 

According to the NAR’s Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends Report, 51% of buyers used the internet to find their new dream homes. This was followed by 34% who used an agent, 8% who found their home via an open house or sign in the yard, and 7% were labeled as other.

While you’re online, it might be a good idea to join community social media groups to find out what is going on in the neighborhoods that interest you. Also, local agents and personal owners list properties on these forums. 

If you find a home you like listed by an owner, you could do the entire process without a realtor. 

But with the agent’s being the second largest source for potential home buyers finding a property, you really do want to collaborate with a real estate agent. 

Selecting a realtor

For the majority of first time home buyers, you’ll want to find an agent you can work with. The more experienced the better. They will have in-depth knowledge about houses on the market in the local area and assist with many aspects of the entire process. 

It’s not surprising that, according to Realtor.com, most agents are referred to buyers via word of mouth or 52%. 

After all, you’ll be spending a lot of personal time with these individuals and you want to trust them. 

It’s always wise to get referrals when selecting an agent and establishing that they are full-time real estate agents with licenses. 

While it’s bound to be suggested by the realtor, you should go to viewings and attend open houses and tour homes whenever possible. 

Visit open houses when you can

While you may have outlined exactly what you want in your home, it’s only when you’ve seen it in person that it becomes a concrete desire. 

Attending open homes will help you, as a new buyer, to know exactly what you want in your new home. Also, many buyers get emotionally attached to one idea or a certain home in their head and only when they encounter it in person can they see their mistake, or that they were right. 

Besides, the more inspiration you expose yourself to, the better the final home you select at the end of the day. 

According to the National Association of Realtors, the average house search takes 10 weeks and will comprise of 10 home viewings. 

But once you’re found the one, it’s time to put in the offer. 

Send in the offer

On the house buy checklist, this is a crucial step to execute properly. If you have contracted a realtor, they will assist you with an offer, which should include your price, preliminary contingencies, disclosing facts, and, for the first time, establishing a closing timeline. 

This is a process you may need to do multiple times until both parties are completely happy, and be prepared to negotiate the purchase price if the seller has their own ideas, in regards to price. 

Before sending through the offer, make sure to stick to three tips: 

• Send through your offer as soon as you can, as others might be interested in the property. 
• Always insist on getting a proper inspection of the place before the offer is validated and the deal closed. 
• Always stand by your offer, if it is too low the seller will say no
• And always mention if you are making a cash-for-house offer, as it guarantees a simpler and quicker sale for the seller.

When the offer is accepted, it’s time to send in the professionals to investigate the home.

Inspection time 

While we’re sure that you would have spotted anything obviously wrong with the property, it's the surprises hidden from sight that are costly. 

The owner is legally bound to share any underlying issues in the house, but sometimes they are honestly unaware of the problems. It’s only when a thorough home inspection is completed that you’ll be sure you’ve made the correct call. 

These specialists should be able to inform you whether there are any large jobs to be completed in the near future and can help you negotiate a better deal. 

What you want to be inspected in the home are:

• Attic
• Foundation
• Walls, ceilings, and flooring
• Plumbing and electrical systems
• Roofing and waterproofing
• Windows and doors
• Visible insulation
• And heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning

Once you have the reports in hand, you can now call in an appraiser to confirm whether you’re paying the correct price for your dream home. 

The appraisal 

Unless you’re able to access a large lump sum of cash, you will need the bank's help in financing the home. 

This often requires an appraiser visiting the home with documents, to estimate their evaluation of the property. 

Most appraisers are only interested in finding out the comparable sale prices in the area (houses sold in the last 90 days), the square footage of the property, the appearance, the additional amenities, and the overall condition of the home. 

If the last two steps have revealed anything untoward you might need to take one more step before closing the deal. 

Renegotiate 

If the inspection and appraisal have thrown a wrench into the deal, you need to renegotiate the price. 

But if the seller is unconvinced you can take three courses of action. 

• Move forward if it is a minor problem
• Ask they foot the bill for repairs if needs be
• And if there are major repair bills and the seller is uncooperative, just walk away.

If you’re ready, it’s time to close this sale and make that last tick in your new home buyer’s checklist. 

Closing the sale

With this step, you’ll be sealing the deal and moving into your new dream home. Before you take ownership, you’ll need to sign some important documents such as:

The settlement statement 

This will summarize the final fees and charges you’ll be accountable for. 

The deed

To transfer ownership from the seller to the buyer you will need to sign the new deed. 

The promissory note 

If you’ve financed this deal through a lender this will be the legal “IOU” with the bank and will outline the loan terms, payment date, and where they must be sent. 

Deed of trust or mortgage 

The document where the buyer agrees to lien on your property as security for repayment of your home loan. 

And that’s it. As a new home buyer, you’ve purchased your first home. But for sellers reading through this new house buyer’s checklist and thinking,

“I want a simpler way to sell my house fast.” 

Then we’d suggest selling to House Buyers of America. 

Sell to House Buyer of America 

We buy houses for cash and purchase homes in Maryland, Virginia house buyers, and the Washington DC area. If you are interested in selling your home without the complication of dealing with inexperienced buyers and want a professional house-buying company, we offer the quickest and simplest solution. 

House Buyers of America buy homes ‘as is’, so no need to pour money into fixing up your property. 

And because House Buyers of America purchases all their properties in cash, it is a fast and hassle-free sale. 

Once you fill out our intuitive online form or give us a call, you’ll receive a cash offer in a few minutes, after which you can arrange a time for us to come by the house to finalize that important paperwork, and the money will be in your account in days. 

Call us today at 855-659-3289 or use our online form to get started! We’ll get you a cash offer within 10 minutes and walk you through the process of selling your house for cash.