The Five Things You Need to Know Before Purchasing a Home – Step 4 – Find the right home
The purpose of this guide is to introduce you to the process of purchasing a new home. It simplifies the process by breaking it up into five steps:
1. Figure out exactly what you want
2. Get pre-approved for a loan
3. Should I hire a real estate agent?
4. Find the right home
5. Get a home loan
By the end of this guide, you will have a deeper understanding of the home buying process.
4. FIND THE RIGHT HOME
Your agent will schedule a buyerʼs consultation meeting to get to know you better and figure out exactly what you are looking for. At the meeting, he will ask you five simple questions:
A. What do you want?
B. Where do you want it?
C. Why do you want it?
D. When do you want it?
E. How much are you willing to pay for it?
If you have done your homework, you already know the answers to these questions. However, your agent will go even more in depth. He needs to determine your needs and wants and whether or not you are ready to purchase a home right now. Once he has established that, he will use the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), which is a database of homes for sale in a particular area, to find the right home based on your needs and budget. The MLS allows you to look for homes in different and narrow down the results based on a number of parameters, such as number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, type of home, price range, etc. Each search result is called a listing, and each listing contains all the relevant information about a particular home (address, list price, year built, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, association fees, etc) as well as pictures of the home. You and your agent will look through the listings and pick out the properties that best fit your needs and budget. Your agent will then make appointments to show you the properties you like. Happy house hunting!
