If you are considering purchasing your first home, it is easy to get caught up in searching through many homes and hundreds of photos, imagining which dream home could be yours. For first-time buyers seeking to purchase a home, reaching out to your local Realtor® should be your first step.
They can provide valuable assistance and guide you through some logistical groundwork and assess if you’re ready to start the process or connect you with industry experts.
Establishing a Budget & Buying Power
The homebuying process may seem overwhelming, especially when it comes to knowing where to start as a first-time homebuyer. Your Realtor® can guide you through establishing a budget and determining overall costs beyond your mortgage payment. Here are some tips they may recommend, such as considering expenses such as property taxes, homeowners insurance, maintenance, utilities, down payments, any additional fees to plan, and how to allocate funds effectively. Don’t worry if you don’t know everything right off the bat. Your Realtor® can help you through how the process works with your budget or point you in the right direction.
Getting Preapproved
Save time and gather the documents that you may need to submit to a lender ahead of time. Keep in mind that they will more than likely pull your credit to give you the pre-approval. Before having a lender pull your credit you might want to pull your credit scores to see where they are at. There are free resources like Credit Karma that might give you a glimpse of where you are at, but for an accurate approach, you may want to pull them from the major credit bureaus. If your credit needs work, don’t worry, your Realtor® or lender can get you on an actionable plan to repair it.
Researching Effectively
With so many homes and neighborhoods to choose from in South Florida, researching can be daunting. Your Realtor® should have a solid understanding of your areas of interest. They can help you filter and consider factors like walkability, parking, property taxes, HOA fees, and recreational activities in the area. This makes searching for properties less stressful and can take the burden off you from having to find the needle in a haystack.
Buying a home is one of the biggest and most important purchases, so create a game plan and find a knowledgeable Realtor® who can guide you through the process.
Source: Forbes and Florida Realtors®
