First Time Home Buying Tips & Advice
While buying a home for the first time can be an exciting, coming-of-age experience, it can also be extremely overwhelming. There's more to buying a home than just finding one you like and making an offer. For all home buyers, especially those purchasing for the first time, there are several things to keep in mind while house hunting.
Other People Are Reading
-
Know Your Payments
-
There's more to home ownership than just a monthly mortgage payment. Home owners will also have to pay taxes, insurance, utilities, and in the case of some subdivisions, neighborhood association fees. These extra costs outside of the mortgage payment are often the difference between whether a home is affordable or unfeasible to buyers. To get an idea of what each of the extras might run, get records of utility bills, budget the taxes into the mortgage and get in touch with an insurance agent to see what a yearly premium would be.
Know Your Limits
-
First-time home buyers are often looking for "starter homes," not dream homes. It's important to keep this in perspective when house hunting. Don't look at any homes that are out of your price range, even if it's just for fun. Know your price range and stick to it. It's a good idea to itemize your house-hunting budget. Come up with an amount you want to put toward a down payment, come up with another amount you want to pay monthly and set aside another amount toward home improvements. This can help buyers manage money so they can selectively choose to look at only those they know they can afford.
-
Do Your Homework
-
Don't take asking prices for granted. Check around at other homes for sale in the neighborhood or surrounding area to see if asking prices are in line with one another. If you find there's a discrepancy, you could use that to your advantage when writing an offer or negotiating a selling price. Websites such as The National Association of Realtors' Realtor.com can help buyers with this task. In addition to asking prices, research the area to find out about the quality of public services, schools and other city amenities.
Make Sure You're Ready
-
Owning a home is an investment. In order to to ensure that property values rise, you're going to have to put work into the home. Much of this can be labor-intensive and expensive. Unlike an apartment complex or rental home, where a call to the landlord or property manager solves the problem, it's up to the homeowner to solve housing problems. Because of this, it's a good idea to negotiate a one-year home warranty into the housing purchase. This way, if anything goes wrong with the furnace, air conditioner, hot water tank or other major components within the first year of home ownership, it's covered by the plan. That gives homeowners time to get settled and some initial peace of mind so they can get working on painting, landscaping and other responsibilities.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
