There are a number of steps involved when buying or selling a home, and a real estate agent is a sure-fire way to make those steps more simple. However, before you can even consider searching for an agent, you’ll need to get a few things in order first. If you aren’t properly prepared to go into a conversation with a real estate agent, you may end up wasting your time and your agent’s time.
With that said, before you find and begin your buying and/or selling journey with the perfect real estate agent, here are some things to have in mind first.
Buying a Home
Buying a new home is a huge step, emotionally and financially – especially if you are a first-time homebuyer. However, a real estate agent can help make the process smooth and easygoing. Before you reach out to an agent for help, make sure you are ready for this step by doing the following:
1. Get Your Finances in Order
This feels obvious, but a few sneaky factors can creep up on you if you aren’t careful. When buying a home, you’ll want to make sure you not only have enough saved up to secure a mortgage loan (even with the first-time homebuyer incentive), but you’ll also want to ensure you have enough for closing costs, unexpected taxes and fees, while still having wiggle room for everyday costs such as groceries, gas, bills, and more.
One of the best ways to smoothly buy a home is to address your current debt before you even begin looking. If you can, pay off your credit card, student loan debt, and anything else weighing down your credit score before trying to get pre-approved. If paying your debt off in its entirety isn’t an option before you need to buy a home, try to get it as low as possible and get ready to show proof that you have a plan for paying it off.
2. Get Pre-Approved for a Mortgage
This step can go along closely with the previous one, but you won’t even be able to have a significant conversation with an agent about buying a home if you aren’t pre-approved (unless you are buying your home with cash). Ask a mortgage lender or your bank what mortgage options are available to you, and the terms of your mortgage will set the stage for the rest of your home-searching process.
To get pre-approved, the bank or mortgage lender will check out your debt, income, and other assets to determine how much mortgage you can afford. They will give you a few options for terms, interest rates, and prices, and from there you will use those numbers to dictate what kinds of homes you look at.
3. Study Your Local Market
This doesn’t have to be a full-scale investigation, but spend some time on real estate websites to see what home prices are like in the area you are moving to. Search for housing trends over the past 5 to 10 years and determine if it’s best to buy a home now or wait. You don’t want to mindlessly rush into things, only to later discover that