Home Buying: How to Buy a House

You’ve decided that you want to buy a house in Mid-Missouri, but where do you start? On this page we are going to layout the steps to buying a home. First, you should ask yourself if you are willing to stay put for at least a few years. If you can’t commit to this, you don’t want to even think about buying a home. You may end up losing money if the market takes a fall.

The next thing you should do is look at your credit score. There are many great websites out there that can tell you what your credit score is. In order to secure a mortgage, you will need to get your credit history as clean as possible. Also, the higher your credit score, the better rate you will be able to get on a loan.

Before you even start hunting for a house, you will need to hunt for a lender. You should always check around with a few different mortgage lenders to see what rates they offer. They will all vary a bit. Once you find a lender to use, get pre-approved so you know that you can actually start looking for a house. The lender will pre-approve you based on your actual income, debt and credit history.

The internet is a great resource to start looking at houses for sale, but a licensed REALTOR® will greatly help you in your search. They will meet with you and get to know you and what you are really looking for in a house. There are also some homes that aren’t widely publicized. You may not know that they are out there, but your agent does and can help you find that perfect dream home. They can also help you during the bidding process to get you the best price possible. They know all the regulations, laws, contracts and practices that go into buying and selling a home. Contracts can be tricky and hard to understand. A real estate agent deals with contracts on a regular basis. This is their job. They know what they are doing. By using an agent, they will get in touch with the seller’s agent and set up appointments to view homes.

Your real estate agent can help you through the bidding process, but you may want to do some research on your own. You can look at the sales trend of similar homes in the neighborhood. You want to look at similar homes that have sold in the last three months. If homes have sold at 5 percent less than the asking price, you should make a bid that is around 8 to 10 percent lower than the house is priced at.

Before the home purchase is final, you will want to hire a licensed home inspector. The inspector will thoroughly inspect the home and point out any potential problems that could turn into major repairs down the road. A good inspection will last two or three hours. They will note whether the problem is a safety issue, major defect or minor defect. On the exterior, they should check the exterior walls, foundation, grading, garage and roof. On the interior, they should look at the plumbing, electrical, HVAC system, water heater, kitchen appliances, laundry room, fire safety and bathrooms. If you decide there is a problem that is too expensive to fix, you can walk away from the purchase or ask the buyer to fix it before buying the home. In the long run, it is a great idea to get an inspection. It is an important step in the home buying purchase and worth its weight in gold.

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