Home Buying Tips for Primary Residences

Our entire website is filled with home buying tips. In this article we’ll discuss tips for first time home buyers. If you’re looking for more specialized information, click on one of the links in our left side navigation to access one of the two dozen other pages our website has with home buying tips.

Tips for buying a first home

The home buying process can be overwhelming, even for those who have done it before. There is a lot involved starting with getting prepared, shopping for a home, finding financing, finding a realtor etc. The first step before even shopping for a home is getting prepared. The reason a potential home buyer wants to be prepared is for the future loan. Things they have lined up in advance can help save down the road on mortgage rates and terms.

The first step to getting prepared is getting a copy of your credit report. Here you’ll want to look to see that everything is in order and that there are no negative marks. If there are negative marks on your credit, take steps to remove them. This might involve calling an old lender and asking them to remove a past negative now, rather than in the 7 year period it requires. This might also involve filling a dispute with the credit bureaus or negotiating settlements on bad debts.

Once the credit is in order, you’ll want to get a down payment secured in your bank account. If the funds are coming from another source such as a gift from family or a personal loan you’ll need to get these funds in your savings account as soon as possible. The lender will need to see that it is your money that is being used for the down payment and will want to see bank statements as evidence.

Once your credit and down payment are secured, you’ll need to begin gathering paperwork. You can find some more details on the paperwork required on our home financing page.

Once you’re prepared to shop for a mortgage loan, the next step is to get educated. There are many closing costs involved in mortgage loans and the more you know about these the better prepared you’ll be to negotiate with lenders. See our closing costs page.

Now that you’re prepared to shop for a mortgage, this is the next step. Once again, we’re doing all this prior to looking for a home. You’ll want to shop around and get a prequalification letter from a lender. Once this is in order, you’ll have the price range all set and you can begin shopping for a home. When doing this, you’ll probably want to have a buying a house checklist handy.

Once again as a reminder, our website has over two dozen pages with many home buying tips. We encourage you to navigate further because the more you know about buying a house, the more prepared you’ll be and the higher the likelihood becomes that you’ll be happy with your first home.