FIRST STEP IN BUYING A HOME

As the saying has been for as long as most of us can remember, being an American is about baseball, apple pie and the house with the picket fence and 2 cars in the driveway.  Now watching baseball and eating apple pie are not hard things to achieve.  But owning a piece of the American dream is a little bit more challenging, especially when you are buying a home for the first time

Although the government and the mortgage / financial sector have gone to great lengths to make the process of buying your first home easier than in the past, there are still many pitfalls that can befall a first time home buyer.

And that is why i think that Step 1 when you are buying a home for the first time is for the buyer to select a qualified and experienced realtor to help him or her to navigate thru the ups and downs and ebbs and flows of buying a home.  Many have discounted the value of a good real estate agent and as a real estate agent myself, i think we in the industry have to unfortunately share some of that blame.  As with any other industry, there are good agents and bad agents.  

But data tells us that many times a first time home buyer will select the first agent that they come across.  OR worse yet, choose to have no representation and deal directly with the seller of the home or that seller's agent.

INTIMIDATING PROCESS / HUGE FINANCIAL INVESTMENT

Now let's be honest here.  While buying a home is not the same thing as performing surgery, Buying your first home can be an intimidating process.  And for most folks, it will be the biggest financial investment that they will ever make.

So the key for first time home buyers is to be well informed and educated on the home buying process.  Questions need to be answered like how much out of pocket money will I need to buy a house?  will I need a home inspection?  Who pays for the home inspection?  How do I know how much home I can afford?

Often times first time home buyers can get overwhelmed with the home buying process and give up before even getting started.  And that is why I go back to my original point.  The first step and the most important step in buying a home is not to talk with a lender, not to figure out which neighborhood you want to live in, not to decide if you want 3 bedrooms or 4 bedrooms.  

CHOOSING THE WRONG REAL ESTATE AGENT CAN COST YOU $$ NOW AND LATER

No the first step is to find a good real estate agent.  Because that real estate agent will be your coach / teacher / mentor / counselor throughout this process.  So it had better be someone that you have vetted and feel confident enough to put your trust in him or her.  As I mentioned before, buying a home is a major investment.  And choosing the wrong person to help guide you through the home buying process could cost you NOT just thousands of dollars at the closing of the home BUT tens of thousands of dollars over the course of a 30 year loan.

Well that's it for today.  In my next blog, we will discuss how a first time home buyer should go about selecting a real estate agent.