Beginning Your Home Journey

Congrats! Now that you’ve decided you’re ready to take that next step in your life and purchase a home, you’ve officially completed the first step in your journey to homeownership. But, what’s next? To help you begin on the right path, we’ve put together our top 3 house hunting tips. ⬇️

1. Meet with your local hometown lender. 

First things first: before you start diving deep into the web or taking advice from your friends or a nosey neighbor, it’s important to schedule a consultation with a licensed expert at your local lender. While there’s a ton of great information out there, it’s also easy to come across incorrect information about the home process. By meeting with an expert, they can not only provide you with the most accurate and up-to-date information, but they can also help you with your specific situation including discussing your goals, analyzing your credit report with you and, most importantly, helping you get your pre-approval (which lets you know how much home you qualify for).

2. Make a checklist.

After meeting with a lender and getting your pre-approval, you’re ready to start making your home search checklist. First on the list: location. When it comes to where you’ll settle down, location is everything. Think about the areas of town you’d like to live in (by already having your pre-approval, you can figure out what areas fit best into your price range too.) Do you want to be in an area with the top-rated school district for your kids? Do you want to have stores within walking distance or are you okay driving 15 minutes to a grocery store? Consider your priorities when deciding on a location. 

Once you’ve come up with a list of potential areas, now’s the time to think about the home itself. What features would you like to have? While some items like bedroom and bathroom count may be non-negotiables, what features are you flexible on? Remember, even if a house doesn’t have everything you’d ideally like to have, as long as you have the key non-negotiables, you can always make updates to the home at a later time. 

3. Find a reputable agent to help you on your search.

The days when you’d walk past a real estate office to look at the homes posted up in the window or search in the newspaper are coming to an end. Nowadays, it seems like everyone is searching online for a home. With that being said, it’s more important than ever to have a reputable real estate agent to help you on your search. 

Not only is a real estate agent familiar with the local area and market trends, but they understand your wants and needs in a home. At Home1st Lending, we’ve had the privilege of working alongside some of the best Realtors in the industry – ensuring a great transaction for our buyer all the way around. Remember, hiring a Realtor costs you nothing but the benefits can be significant.

Looking to upgrade your home & have the office of your dreams? 

With remote jobs here to stay, it’s important to have a work space where you can take Zoom meetings, calls, etc. So, whether that means renovating your current space OR finding a new space to live in altogether, our team would love to help you! To get the process started & help you reach your home goals, all we need are a few details from you on our no-obligation form on the right or simply give us a ring at (407) 330-7566.