Thinking of buying a home?

What are the first steps? What do you do?  

These steps below will get you started in the right direction.  The best thing to do is to engage with a professional Broker (Realtor) that you work wwell togetrher with. They will should have  aprocess that will make the home buying event easier and more fluid. 

The Beginning

First step is to check out mortgage brokers, to get Pre-Approved, research 2 or 3 to see what their rates are, such as Cobalt Mortgage or Cornerstone Home Lending

 To make a commitment wit the mortgage broker and get the pre-approval process in the works.

There is a difference between pre-approval and pre-qualified, here is the difference between the 2 of them.

Pre-qualified is a simple process of the mortgage broker asking simple question, such as income and debt and then you are pre qualified for  X amount.

Pre approval is more in depth financial information to determine what your purchasing power is.  Typically both require a credit check, yet the approval process will require you digging deeper into your financial world, break to the W-2’s, 401K docs, and investment paperwork, pay stubs.

Once your broker (Real Estate Agent) has the paperwork/letter stating what your purchasing power is, all may be in order with your finances if they are not, then you may need to pay a little or a lot of attention to fixing any issues that popped up during this process.

Now is the time to figure out what you are going to look for?

What areas you like, rate 1, 2 and 3^rd

What schools area do you want to be in?

Public transportation? Is this important

Work, how close to work?

What style of home do you like? Contemporary, Modern, Tudor, Rambler?

What size of home?

How many floors, this goes with style of home

How many bedrooms? Size of rooms

How many bathrooms?  How extensive of bathroom finishes are you looking for?

Den/ library are they in your future?

Property, how much property are you looking for?

Kitchen, what are you looking for in a kitchen, simple, or extensive

Garage, 1,2 or 3 cars?

Living room, media rom?

There are so many things to think about when purchasing a home.

When looking for a home it’s important to enjoy the search and make it a good experience.

Fireplace/s  Gas or wood burning

Backyard amenities?

Are you looking for a basement, finished?

This is not my complete list, though it is fairly long and encompasses a lot of items.

I hope this helps you get pointed in the right direction.  Be smart and just because it has a nice paint or great paint colors doesn’t mean it’s a great house.  Use a very good home inspector; the home inspector should not be used to get a lower price but to get a very good idea of what the condition of the house is in and what repairs are needed.

If you have a great Broker (Realtor) then utilize them for their expertise and advice, a true Realtor will be worth all their money.

Good luck and enjoy your search.

Tom Fine

Fine Homes NW, Inc.

Windermere Real Estate Capitol Hill, Seattle

206-434-6561