7 Tips To Make Buying Your First Home Easier

Buying your first home is a rite of passage for many people, but it sometimes seems out of grasp. If you’ve gotten to the point where you’re finally able to do so, you mightn’t know how to buy your first home.

With all of the complications and hurdles involved, it’s easy to see why it might seem overwhelming. By following a few simple and effective tips, however, you can minimise all of the stress involved with the process.

While there’ll still be some work and effort involved – unfortunately – it could be more straightforward than you’d first think. Seven particular tips should help with this quite significantly.

How To Buy Your First Home: 7 Top Tips

1. Compare Loans

Mortgages will be one of the larger aspects of buying your first home you’ll need to consider. For some homebuyers, they’ll be relatively easy loans to get, but they’ll be more difficult for others. The trick to this is to compare options before settling on a particular mortgage.

By doing so, you can get a much better interest rate on the mortgage, which makes it much more affordable. While this means putting in a bit more time and effort, the savings you’ll see will be more than worth it.

There’s no reason not to compare options.

2. Be Careful With Estate Agents

Speaking with a real estate agent is an effective way to make buying your first home easier. You shouldn’t simply stick with the first one you come across, however. Agents and brokers come with fees you’ll need to be aware of. One option could charge drastically more than another.

If you want to keep your costs low, then you’ll need to compare options before working with a particular real estate agent. When you’re doing this, you should keep a few other factors in mind, such as how much access to the local market they have.

The more comfortable you feel with them, the better they should be.

3. Stick To Your Budget

Having a budget before you start looking for a home or mortgage is vital. You should know how much you can afford to pay back on the mortgage every month. As simple as that is, it’s something quite a few people overlook. That’s especially true if the bank offers a mortgage higher than originally asked for.

If that happens to you, think twice about it. A higher mortgage involves paying it off for longer. You could also end up having much larger repayments to make. These could be outside of your monthly budget. Should that be the case, the mortgage is worth saying no to.

Stick to your guns and make sure you can afford the mortgage you take.

4. Don’t Be Afraid To Negotiate

When a homeowner lists their property for sale, it’ll come with their ideal selling price. That doesn’t always mean that’s exactly what they’ll get. The real estate agent would’ve likely informed them that they’ll need a little wiggle room to close the sale. They should expect to come down somewhat before the property sales.

That means there’s a certain amount of room for negotiation. While this varies from property to property, go into this by being open to negotiating. The more open you are to this, the more you could end up saving.

Starting with a lower price from what the owner is asking is recommended. There’ll be a bit of back and forth, so you’ll end up going above this. You’ll still be lower than the initial asking price, however.

5. Pick The Right Neighbourhood

It’s natural to focus specifically on the property when you’re looking for your first home. No house exists in a vacuum, however, so you’ll need to pay attention to the neighbourhood that it’s in. You’ll need to figure out whether or not it’s somewhere you’d like to live.

That could be relatively easy if you already know which neighbourhoods you already like or don’t like. If you’re unsure, however, it’s worth spending some time in a neighbourhood before you commit to buying.

If there are local cafes and restaurants, it could be worth visiting these and seeing what they’re like. Visiting the neighbourhood at different times and on different days is also helpful. It lets you get the general vibe of the area while figuring out whether it’s somewhere you’d like to live.

You’ll get a much better sense of the neighbourhood’s character when you’re doing this. Nobody wants to move into a new home, only to find the neighbourhood is completely wrong for them. Don’t forget to visit during the weekend and after work to get an overall sense of what it’s like.

6. Know Your Costs

When you’re putting together a budget and figuring out how to buy your first home, you’ll need to know what your costs are. There are three main types of costs you’ll need to be aware of. These are:

• Down Payment – This’ll be the most obvious cost of buying a new home and is unavoidable. While this can vary depending on the overall cost of the home itself, it’s an unavoidable part of buying a home. Your mortgage will also have an impact on this, as most financial institutions have a minimum percentage to pay.
• Closing Costs – These are the expenses you’ll need to pay when you’re finalising the sale. They typically range between 2% and 5% of the home’s overall price, but you could negotiate with the seller to get them to pay some of these.
• Move-In Expenses – Quite a few people overlook the costs involved in moving into your first home. You’ll need to move furniture, turn on utilities, and much more. Make sure you have enough money set aside for these.

Once you have an in-depth knowledge of the costs you’ll need to pay with your first home, you’ll be better able to budget for it. You can then narrow down the choices you have on offer. It’ll be much easier to find homes to view and put an offer on.

7. Get A Preapproval Letter

Getting a mortgage can be a difficult and stressful process. It’s not something you should leave to the last minute. Getting it out of the way early is recommended, and you can do so by getting a preapproval letter from your lender.

These are agreements to give you a mortgage under specific circumstances. You can then use this as evidence that you can afford the home you’ve put an offer on. It makes this much easier once you’ve entered negotiations with the seller.

While the bank could still end up turning down your mortgage application when you eventually apply for it, that’s unlikely. You should get this done as soon as you start home shopping.

It lets you narrow down which homes you look at based on whether or not you can afford them.

How To Buy Your First Home: Wrapping Up

If you don’t know how to buy your first home, it seems like a stressful and daunting process. You’ll have to view countless homes, put in more than a few offers, negotiate, and more. It’s easy to see why many people get stressed out about it. And that’s without even mentioning the financial side of things.

By following each of the above tips, however, you can make it much easier. Though you’ll still need to get through more than a few things, you won’t have a problem getting it done. Keep the end result in mind and focus on satisfying it’ll be once you’ve bought your first home.

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