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This post is sponsored by Diamondlinks. Any opinions expressed are my own.
In my life, I’ve bought 3 homes. The 1st one was we built, the second one was a starter home and fixer upper for my husband and I. We went through a realtor on that one, the 3rd one is the home we live in now both the seller and the buyers (us) didn’t use a realtor. My husband and I agreed. We don’t ever want to buy a home again unless it’s a house or a condo on the beach.
The home buying process is stressful! All the red tape, the waiting, the inspections, finding the right place, lining up help to move, the fees. Ugh, yea I remember the stress. But you can help cut down on the stress by doing some of these things.
- Get pre-approved for a mortgage. This isn’t a guarantee that you’ll be approved once you finally find the home you want but it gives you an idea of how much you’re likely to be approved for. This also helps speed up the actual mortgage process when you do find your house.
- Compare the different types of loans out there. When we bought our current house a VA loan ended up being the best deal for us since my husband is an army veteran. With our previous house we used a first time home buyers loan which was better at that time. There are even bad credit loans for those that are working on their credit. Hey mistake happen in life.
- Research the area(s) you are considering. In our area, where we live the school was the best in the tri-county area, we were close to both mine and my husband’s family, taxes were lower, crime rate was low, and we got more home for our budget than we would have in a neighboring town.
- Research the house you’re going to buy. If it’s been on the market for quite some time you may be able to negotiate price, having fees taken care or, or things like throwing in the appliances a little easier. On the other hand if it’s just listed and you know it’s what you want call as soon as possible. The home we’re in now is perfect for us. My husband and I both knew it was what we wanted. I was the first person to call, we were the first people to tour it. They had 5 more people waiting to tour it. The sellers we eager to sell as they owned several other properties and had issues with a renter they had here. So we put an offer on the house that day and right at the price we wanted.
- Decide what is a MUST for your home and what is optional. For us, my husband needed a garage. We needed more bedrooms since we had our 4th child. We also needed a bigger yard for the kids to actually play outside. We also needed more than one bathroom. I wanted a bigger kitchen with more storage. Using that base idea we were able to narrow down our search by searching number of bedrooms and the town we wanted to live in.
