Thinking about buying a home? Let's talk about your timeline.

Thinking about buying a home?

Here are some things to consider about your timeline.


I often talk to people who are interested in purchasing a home and feel like they are “starting early” when, in reality, they may be starting the process right on time. I want to take this opportunity to go over a few aspects of the home buying process that may come as a surprise and provide some suggestions that may make this process go more smoothly.

Check your credit reports


Take the time to pull your credit report from all the major companies (you can do this each year for free). Check for inaccuracies & errors that you can call and have repaired. Check to see if there are any payments that you may need to make or bring current that might improve your score. A better credit score means a better rate. You may find your credit report to be exactly what you expected, no surprises at all. If that is the case this process will go pretty quickly. You may find, however, that there are a couple of errors or mistakes on your report that need to be addressed. Making the time to contact these companies and to go through the effort to follow up will be very beneficial in the long run, but it may take a month or more to see the results.

Speak with your Lender

Your Lender can tell you what you’re qualified for, which is very important when you are deciding what homes to look at during your search. Your Lender can also estimate what your loan amount will look like in monthly payments. Just because you are qualified to take out a large home loan, you may not want to make the large monthly payments that go with it. If your credit score needs some work your Lender will also be a wealth of knowledge on how to do this and will have people you can contact to help you with credit repair if needed.

If you are new to the area you may have a Lender from your previous area. You can use a Lender from another area or city but often times it will make closing go more smoothly if you choose a lender from the county where you will be making the purchase. These Lenders are used to working with the local title companies and following their processes and timelines.

Establishing a relationship with a Lender won’t take very long. They will have some information that they will need to get from you and that process can take a couple of days to a week. If they provide you with suggestions to improve your credit score in order to make your rate more appealing then that process may take a little more time - as much as a month or more - but it will all be worth it in the end.

Don’t know a Lender? Call your Realtor - they work with Lenders on a daily basis and will know someone you can contact.


Speak with your Realtor

Your Realtor is happy to coach and educate you during the home buying process but once you have all of these things in order - THIS is when the Realtor really gets to work. This is the exciting time everyone looks forward to! They will pull property listings to your specifications, take you to see homes, and when you find that perfect home you will be READY to make your offer with confidence. Best case scenario, when you make an offer you will hear back immediately, but sometimes it can take a few days or more depending on when the Listing Agent presents offers to the Seller. There may be negotiations necessary to achieve an acceptable contract for all parties. Once your offer is accepted the home goes through different stages of the contract period, which usually lasts about 45 days barring any negotiated changes or repairs.

Home ownership is an excellent investment. You build equity and wealth, gain tax deductions, automatically contribute to your savings each time you pay your mortgage and it is a better financial choice than renting over time. Don’t let your timeline sneak up on you or the process bog you down. I would love to be a resource for you on your home buying journey. Call me if you have any questions - I am here to help!

Michelle Peacock, Realtor®
TM5 Properties
michelle@tm5properties.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is your home prepared for a freeze?

Image
  We don't usually get "real" Winters in this area. If we dip below freezing over night it's usually just one night here & there during the Winter months. We rarely see snow and can go years without the worry of ice on the roads. This year is NOT that year. We've already seen a FULL day of snow that stuck, you could still see snowmen up to four days later. But that week was no where near as cold as the coming week is looking to get! With temperatures struggling to get above freezing for close to a week it's good to be prepared.  Stock up on necessities. You don't want to have to brave potentially ice covered roads to get to the grocery store or pharmacy. If you have prescriptions to pick up or need to plan for meals for a few days do that in advance of the winter blast that is coming. You may even want to plan for kids to potentially be home for a few days as here in the Southern states schools will often close if the roads become unsafe.  Keep your h
Read more

Prequalification vs. Preapproval: The first steps to getting you into the home of your dreams!

Image
  Prequalification vs. Preapproval: The first steps to getting you into the home of your dreams! Purchasing your own home is a goal for many people. But if you haven't purchased a home before, or maybe haven't purchased a home in a long while, it's important to keep the first thing the first thing and understand HOW you will be purchasing your home. For the vast majority of people, they will be purchasing their home with a home loan or mortgage. Yes, I know all about those online calculators that tell you how much home you can afford, but I am here to tell you - it's so important to speak with a good lender. The information you can gain from them is more valuable than most people realize.  When you start the home searching process you will often hear about preapproval or prequalification or you may here both terms used interchangeably. These words mean very different things when it comes to your ability to actually purchase a home. So understanding the difference is imp
Read more

Creating your Home Office

Image
Creating your Home Office In recent months many (if not most) of us have found ourselves working much more from home. The fact is that none of us really knows if we might need to be able to work from home again in the future (ie. the Fall), but there are a host of reasons why anyone could need to work from home. There are definitely some pros and cons to working from home. There are also things that we can do to make the most of the pros & minimize the cons to make for an effective work day at home. Of course, having the office to actually GO to is nice. I don't even use a dedicated "office" at my office. I use the open spaces and love interacting with my coworkers. But just being there gives me more energy and more focus. Some will say that working from home is better for them; they struggle with distractions at the office and may be more creative at home. Neither is wrong but let's look at some ways to make the home office really work for us. What kind of space
Read more