Educate Yourself about Home Buying

you’ve searched homes for sale and you’re ready to buy a new home? You’re tired of throwing your money away on rent. You’ve scrimped and saved for quite a while now. You feel like you’re ready to take the big leap and make a real estate investment. Now what? 

To borrow from the Boy Scouts: Be prepared. And we can add to that:  Be informed. These two concepts really go hand-in-hand.

Proper preparation prevents pitifully poor performance. Good preparation can make the difference between a smooth transaction and a nightmare. A well-prepared home buyer can also recognize red flags and save thousands of dollar by being knowledgeable about the complex homebuying process.

Proper preparation encompasses these concepts:

• Define the reasons why you want to buy a home. Go beyond the obvious reason of needing a roof over your head and ask youself how owning a home can help you and your family realize your short- and long-term goals. Keeping these reasons and goals in mind can help prevent you from wavering during the home buying process.
• Take a hard look at your finances, including income, expenses, budget, savings and overall financial situation. Be realistic!
• Know what you can afford. A home is the largest investment most people make. If you bite off more than you can chew, you could end up choking on the expenses related to your home, which could ultimately affect your lifestyle or even force you to abandon your dream home because you simply can’t afford it.

You can never acquire enough information. Compiling salient information can prevent you from making expensive mistakes and improve your effectiveness in searching for, finding and buying your new home.

Today we begin offering a helpful guide — a home buyer’s checklist – that can help you get started and carry you through to home ownership.

• Become informed and “real estate savvy”. The Internet is a great place to start. More than 80 percent of would-be home buyers begin their home search on the Internet. You can start your quest for information comfortably and on your own terms while acquiring a wealth of information. One good, unbiased source is a website called Our Family Place, which has links to all kinds of information related to the home buying process without pushing any particular sales organization. Check out a glossary of real estate terms that you should familiarize yourself with.
• Go to a popular search engine such as Google or Yahoo and type in “Miami new homes” or “Miami real estate” (or whatever city you want to live in).
• Home buyers guides can be found on many real estate web sites. Look at as many as you can and pick and choose the relevant information that applies to you and your home search.
• Real estate blogs, which often contain daily updates, offer pertinent articles and tips about all aspects of the home buying process.
• Hit the bookstore or the library. Most bookstores and libraries have a wide assortment of titles covering a variety of real estate-related topics (and library books are free).

The more information you know, the better off you’ll be once you start making inquiries with brokers, agents, mortgage providers and other real estate professionals. You can speak with knowledge and hold a position of strength while earning respect from real estate professionals, who often must educate consumers. If you come off as knowledgeable, you will earn respect from them and have a better chance of making the best deal you can on a new home for you and your family.

If you are a first-time home buyer, you may not be aware of some of the nuances and pitfalls associated with the homebuying process. Knowledge is power and knowing how the process works can save you thousands of dollars and tons of regret as you set out to buy a new home.

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