Just Starting Out..

Hi Everyone,
I just ventured over from LIW. I am getting married in July and we are beginning the process of getting pre-approved for our mortgage. Any advice, tips, etc. would be appreciated! I look forward to learning from you all!
Megan

Re: Just Starting Out..

Did you find a house yet?

Re: Just Starting Out..

Best of Luck to you!

Re: Just Starting Out..

Hi Megan!

Congratulations on your wedding and starting your house hunt.

I would be happy to talk with you about the home buying process and answer any questions, so feel free to FM me or contact me by phone or email (all of my contact info is in the business directory). I am a full-time realtor, and an attorney (but now I focus exclusively on real estate sales). But my background is often useful when it comes to counseling my customers and negotiating on their behalf.

I think the first step, as you said, is to get preapproved for a mortgage, so you know what you can afford and what you feel comfortable spending each month (and a monthly payment will include not just the mortgage payment alone, but taxes and homeowners' insurance). You don't want to waste your time looking at houses way above (or below) your target price point.

I think it's also key to understand the home buying process, step by step, so you feel prepared. The more prepared you are, the less stressful the process is.

It's also a good idea to become familiar with the areas you are interested in and do your research on the homes available in that market. The internet is a great tool for preliminary searching, but ultimately, I think it's in your best interests to find a realtor you can trust who can guide you through the process and will be accessible to answer questions as they come up (as they inevitably do). Plus, it's just more efficiient and saves you a lot of work to have one realtor to deal with rather than going to each listing agent for each property you want to see, which is a scheduling nightmare. Any realtor who is an MLS member can get you into any listing on MLS; sometimes people think realtors can only show you their own listing or their own office's listings, and that's just not the case.

It's good to have certain criteria in mind to start (because you have to start somewhere), but try to keep an open mind in terms of things like style of house. So many people I know wind up buying something different than what they started out looking for. Myself included!

Most of all, have fun! I was a first time homebuyer in 2008, and while at times it was stressful, I really enjoyed the process of finding my home. I hope you have the same experience.

If you would like a free Listingbook account - just let me know, and I can set it up for you. It's a site that basically pulls info from MLS, but is more user-friendly. It matches listings to your criteria and allows you to mark favorites, make comments... basically helps you get organized and track the houses you want to see. It will also send you daily email updates of new listings that meet your criteria, price changes, and other updates. FM me if you are interested!

Good luck.

Re: Just Starting Out..

Thanks everyone! We haven't found a house yet but our real estate agent has started the search. We also scour MLSLI daily. We are excited to start the process!