|
Call Anytime
1-877-88ISLAND
|
|
Island
Equity Mortgage
555 Broadhollow Road
Suite 203
Melville, NY 11747 |
|
 |
The Home Buying Process
Buying a home may
seem like a dauntingly complex
proposition, perhaps because you've
never done it before or never
understood all the details of
financing and closing a sale.
However, once you know what steps
are involved, understand the purpose
of each step, and learn how each is
accomplished, buying a home will be
revealed for what it is--a series of
simple steps that lead toward a
substantial emotional and financial
commitment.
|
Prepare to Buy
- Clarify your reasons to buy. Because
it is such a weighty commitment,
buying a home shouldn't come with
regret or second thoughts. Before
you buy or even begin the process,
make sure that your reasons and
resolve to buy a home are clear and
firm.
- Get your financial house in order.
It's hard to have any idea about how
much home you can afford if you
don't know how much of your money
you want to devote toward housing.
If you haven't done so already,
thinking about buying a home is a
perfect reason to get your finances
in order.
- Check your credit history. Even if
you aren't going to buy a house,
this is a good idea. If your credit
report has mistakes or other
blemishes, your credit rating will
suffer. As a result, you will hurt
your chances of securing financing
and will probably pay higher
interest rates or possibly not be
able to secure financing.
- Figure out how much home you can
afford. Getting an accurate estimate
of what priced home you can afford
will make your search more realistic
and efficient. It may even give you
cause to reconsider buying
altogether.
- Buy vs. rent. Depending on your
situation, renting a home instead of
buying may make more sense
(financially or otherwise). It's a
possibility that's worth
considering.
Buy a Home
- Get prequalified. When preparing to
buy a home, you estimate how much
home you can afford. Now it's the
lender's turn. Using financial
information that you provide,
prequalification is a lender's
analysis of your general position as
a borrower, or in other words, an
estimate of what you can afford.
Getting prequalified gives you an
even clearer understanding of what
home you will be able to afford, and
a prequalification letter from your
lender helps strengthen your
position with sellers in the early
stages of negotiation.
- Shop for loans. Finding a good loan
is probably the most confusing part
of the process (and definitely the
dullest), but since it will dictate
how much your monthly payment will
be, it deserves your full attention.
To simplify, your job is to decide
what kind of loan you want, whom you
want to get it from, and how long
you want the term to be (most are
either for 15 or 30 years).
- Get preapproved. When you get preapproved, a lender gives a firm
commitment to loan you up to a set
amount without knowing the specific
property. It's particularly useful
because when you make an offer on a
home, waiting for financing won't
jeopardize your offer. Once you are
preapproved, closing the loan is
quick, depending only on a
satisfactory appraisal and title
report of the home. To get
preapproved you apply for a certain
purchase price, loan amount, and
loan program, but these assumptions
can change after you're preapproved.
- Find a home. Finding the perfect
home can be challenging, especially
if you are moving to a new area.
Regardless of where you're moving,
the Internet offers powerful tools
to research neighborhoods and find
available homes.
- Close the deal. Once you've found
the home you want, you still must
get it inspected, have it appraised,
get a report on the title (to make
sure the history of the house is
clean), negotiate the price, and
close your financing.
- Move in. If you've made it this far,
you're close to the finish line, but
the race isn't over. Moving presents
its own challenges, and there's a
litany of things to be mindful of,
such as changing your address and
more.
|
|
|
|
|
