Hello, beautiful! I hope this post sees you well. With going on 2 years in our first home I thought it could be beneficial to share some of my first time home buying tips based on our experience. Just like most things in life buying a home is beautiful & chaotic. I hope you can glean something from my tips below :)
1. Like who you are working with- Honestly this could seem like a no brainier but it is SO important. You will be working with your realtor A LOT. You will be in meetings & going on countless tours with them. You want to be able to connect & vibe. Another person you'll want to feel comfortable working with his your mortgage broker. You will be spending some time with them for sure. I think anytime you are doing business it is important to stick to your values & work with people that are inline with that. I wish I could tell you I loved our experience but that just wasn't the case. Buying a house is the biggest investment of your life & you want to work with people that understand & take the time to do everything they can for you.
(Side story: I was on a confrontational phone call with my mortgage broker right before a training for work. I go to the training a little irritated & the people at work thought I was mad I had to be at that training LOL)
2. Don't get discouraged- Keep the faith & know that whatever house is meant to be will be. We looked at about 8 houses before making an offer on ours. Let me tell you looking got frustrating. We would literally find a house online, call our realtor to get a walk through, & when he would go to set up a showing that house would be off the market later that day. Another stressful thing for first time home buyers is getting your mortgage. Getting pre-approved for a loan is the easy part, you don't have that house until you have your commitment letter from the bank. Our closing date got pushed back literally I think 3 times because the bank was dragging their feet with our commitment letter. Then they come back & told us that Ricky needed to find another job that wasn't a contract. (He was working for FEMA at the time) Anything could go wrong in the process at any given time & it can get stressful but know that everything happens for a reason.
3. Have at least 3% down for your deposit- As newly weds we didn't really have the luxury of putting down the 20% to avoid PMI (private mortgage insurance). You can put down 3% as a first time home buyer just be prepared to add a couple hundred dollars to your mortgage every month for PMI.
4. Get the sellers to pay closing costs- Closing costs I believe are $500 typically this is the responsibility of the party that is purchasing the property. On top of paying for the inspection & the deposit we wanted to see if we could work having the sellers pay for the closing costs. This was apart of our purchase & sale agreement.
5. READ!! Okay my last & final point it is so important that you read everything. I felt extremely rushed when reading our purchase & sale. We had to sign 2 because with Ricky having to get another job our closing date got pushed back. In our first purchase & sale included that the sellers would keep the washer, dryer, & fridge at the house. Well the second one left that out, which I wish I had caught but was "promised" it was the same exact agreement. So when we did our final walk through before closing we found that those items were missing. This is by far the biggest purchase of your life you want to make sure everything goes swimmingly.
Alright babes those are my 5 tips based on purchasing my home in MA. There is a first time home buyers course in MA but we over qualified so we were not able to take it. But based on friends that have, I think it is worth looking into. I believe that most of these tips are applicable for any state but I would check the deposit & closing cost depending on where in the country you live. I do also recommend searching for your home in spring more options pop up but keep in mind so does the interest rate.
Well dolls I hope you found this helpful!
Talk soon!
