Home Buying Guide

Guide For Buying Your First Home

Planning to realize your dream at last? Are you finally thinking of purchasing your first home? However, the actual experience of buying your first home can be far from easy. Well, this article might just help make the task a little easier for you.

Most first time home buyers actually start researching long before they buy a home. After all the feedback and advice from parents, siblings, relatives and friends, when you finally decide to buy a home, that itself is a monumental achievement.

You should have carefully judged the positive and negative aspects of buying your new home, so half your battle is already won.

Most people will start their search on the internet. They take a tour of real estate available in the virtual world, and try to narrow down the kind of home and neighborhood they want. So by the time they visit the real estate agents office they know very precisely about what they want.

A good real estate agent will first listen to your needs carefully. The agent should have seen the homes himself/herself before showing them to you, and should only show you those homes that match your needs and requirements.

Ideally, at one go you should ask your agent to show you as many homes as you can cover at a time without over-exerting yourself, as this will only lead to you not being able to judge the homes on equal grounds. The day you go out to see your prospective homes will be a hectic one – so be prepared. Make sure you are on a full stomach before you venture out.

To help you select a home, here are a few tips. Follow these tips to remember to record the details about the homes that you see. You can refer to these details later to make a final decision at your own time. First and foremost, bring your digital camera along. Take pictures of each and every house you are shown. The first pictures should be of the house itself. Take close ups of the house, followed by the pictures of the interiors of the house. This will help you to classify the pictures into sets for each house you see. Secondly, write down minute and unusual details about the house and its design.

Do not forget to check out the outside environment too. Find out if you like the neighborhood and the location of the house at all.

Finally, later, sit down, relax and think at length if you liked any house along with the area where it is located and how it is built (whether it is a one storied house towered over by higher buildings and such other details). Rate the buildings accordingly on a scale of one to ten.

Make sure that you buy your home as soon as you see the perfect one. Touring homes is not same as buying a dress. For example, you will love the dress you see in the first shop you visit.

Yet you will visit other shops and see other dresses, only to come back to the first to buy the first dress you saw. Buying a house and a dress is definitely different. So remember to buy one if you really feel that this should be the perfect home you have been looking for.

After having seen a few homes, you will know or at least have a rough idea about which home you would want to make yours. Go back to see those one or two homes which you have short listed later on for the second time. When you visit them a second time, attempt to notice things you may have missed the first time round. Perhaps you will notice a few things that you missed before. Now your agent will also get a feeling that you have shortlisted the right home and will check with the listing agents and find out what the seller’s interests are. They will find out whether other offers for the same house have come or not, and if the house is still available for buying.

Most of the times, your agent will have a fairly good idea about the home that you would finally like to buy. However, a good agent won’t impose their thoughts on you and would like to leave the decision to you. Ideally, your agent should ensure you that the home you choose to buy is the right one for you.

We hope that you find your first home and fulfill that dream of yours, and be a proud owner of your own home!