How to Buy Your First House The Easy Way

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By felixthecat
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Home ownership, is often referred to as "The American Dream." But many think it is impossible, and do not even know where to start. But if you follow these simple steps, you can own your own home in a matter of months.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Step 1

Before you even start looking at houses, you must take the first step of improving you FICO score. You want the highest FICO score possible, because then you are sure to get a great rate on your loan for the house. FICO scores range from 300-850. If you have a low FICO score, expect to pay A LOT more interest on your loan. So obtain a copy of your credit report, and credit score, and start building it up as much as you can.
Step 2

The next step in buying a home, is to determine how much you can afford. You can expect to put down 10-20% of the home's value, so be careful in deciding what you can afford. So if you have $20,000 saved for a down payment, you could put down 10% on a $200,000 home, or you could put down 20% on a 100,000 home. The more you put down, the lower your monthly payment will be. Remember, to calculate all monthly housing expenses, too. You want to be able to have money left over for other things in your life!
Step 3

Before contacting a real-estate agent, make sure to get pre-approved for the amount you can actually pay. Apply to several lenders, all within a 14-day period so you do not ruin your credit score.
Step 4

Now it is time to look at as many houses as possible. Do not rush this process, take you time looking at as many houses as you can. Find a good real-estate agent. Usually, by word-of-mouth, you can locate a great real-estate agent. Inform you real-estate agent, in great detail, exactly what you are looking for in a house.
Step 5

Once you find your dream home, make an offer. And once you sign the offer, you will be in escrow. You can be an escrow for 30 to 90 days, while all the details of the loan get finalized.
Step 6

The last step is closing escrow, which is typically done in title office; and requires a ton of paper work, and signing. Congrats on buying your first home!

Comments

ewhitney said

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on 10/16/2009 Lots of great tips here for people new to the market. I wonder if your readers might like the other great info on this new site, http://www.firsthomeexperience.com/main/.

Could you take a look and let me know what you think about the info. You’ll see stuff for buyers, realtors and some easy to enter contests.

nenaandtrey07 said

on 8/23/2009 great article on buying a house !

rapidspeed said

on 6/17/2009 I mean there are so little ways for us Key workers and First time buyers to get onto the house market nowadays, with all the great incentives introduced by governments and local councils many of us can still not find ourselves in a position to climb onto the first rung of the housing ladder but are instead waiting on a long queue waiting for a miracle to help us obtain money or meet some of the strict criteria to even be allowed to wait on the queue. Let's face it, even if we are on the first rung, our feet are not firmly there with 25% of the house being owned by us and the rest company/government owned. Not only that, we also have to pay rent on top of the 25% we own! I am sure some of you feel like I do. It is just not worth it.
So just imagine my luck when I stumbled on this way that gave me a golden ticket, I found myself going past all the sad dejected people waiting on the que...