Welcome to How to Buy a House
The goal of How to Buy a House is to educate potential home buyers on aspects of home buying. On our website you’ll find information on all sorts of home purchases ranging from mobile and manufactured homes to primary residence and vacation homes. You’ll also find many home buying tips as well as pages on home finance. Whether your credit is stellar, not so good, or even horrible, and whether you have a large down payment, a small down payment or no down payment at all, our How to Buy a House website has the content you’re looking for.
We’re also friendly when it comes to recommending other websites. We understand the home buying process can be stressful and requires a learning curve. While we’d like to someday become the definitive guide on How to Buy a House, the truth is this is a vast topic and there is already a lot of great information on the web. With us, you’ll find lots of practical advice, and we hope when you do click off our website, you’ll return often until you have all the information you need on How to Buy a House.
Now having the introductions out of the way, we’ll cover one of the most popular topics, how to buy a first home.
How to Buy a First House
There are several steps one should take before considering purchasing their first home. The first step is to get all your home financing in order. We recommend reading our page Tips on Buying a House for ideas on the location, but then to also read our Home Financing page.
If you’re brand new to home buying, then perhaps our Home Buying FAQ would be helpful in getting you started.
The steps to purchasing a house are as follows:
#1) Get prepared: this involves getting a copy of your credit report and making sure everything is up to par. If it is not, fix it. The difference between a single point on 30-year $200,000 mortgage is $125.46 per month. This means that if a mark on your credit ups your interest rate one point, you’ll be paying up to $45,165.60 more over the course of repayment. Do your homework and get your credit in line before purchasing a home.
Once your credit is in line, you’ll want to move any down payment not already in your savings account into your savings account. Most lenders will not accept gifts or unverified cash as a down payment. They’ll want to see this is your own money and has been in your bank account for the past 3-6 months.
#2) Begin the shopping process: Once your credit and down payment are in line, you’ll want to begin shopping for a pre-approval on a mortgage. This will give you an idea of how much you can afford, and it will make the process of shopping for a home easier.
#3) Decide on a Realtor: You might want to hire a realtor to show you homes, or you might wish to start looking on your own. For more on this topic see our page: How to Buy a Home without a Realtor.
#4) Understand the closing costs: You already have a pre-approval from one lender that you can use, now you might shop a little further once you’ve decided on a home you would like to purchase.
This entire process can be made easier when you get together a buying a house checklist.
Keep in mind that the more familiar you are with how to buy a house, the easier the process will become and likely the better deal you’ll find. Continue navigating our website for many more pages on how to buy a house.