Hey First Time Home Buyer……this is for you!
Does the thought of looking for your first house both scare you and EXCITE you? We can remove the ‘scare you’ part – which is little more than not having all the information you need to make an informed, smart decision.
First thing first ~
1) Your Goals
It’s a good idea to define your goals, where you vision yourself when you look at that picture in your head. What do you see?
So let’s define your goals – First let’s make a list of wants versus desires (the stuff you have to have versus the stuff you would like to have)
Are you a ‘move in and live’ kind of person or does the thought of making changes to a fixer upper keep you up at night planning? What fits your budget without cramping your lifestyle? Enjoy getting away on weekends? A house can mean less getaways but what’s more fun than having friends over to a backyard BBQ.
If you haven’t already been to your bank or favourite mortgage advisor – we have a short list of highly recommended mortgage advisors. The best part of buying now is interest rates. A house may actually be less than your apartment. So you’ve planned for the down payment, your deposit, and realize you have to pay a lawyer. There can be a lot of other unexpected costs to buying a house – such as insurance, utility deposits, minor repairs, land transfer tax. We can provide you with a list of these ‘Oh, I never thought about that’ potential costs. The neighbourhood. We grew up in Kingston, we know your neighbourhood.
2) Your First Venture Out
You’re approved, you’ve been searching realtor.ca, and found 26 perfect houses. Now what?
We’re looking after your interests? We know that you expect that, but before we start house hunting, it’s important to know the difference between Customer Service and Buyer Representation. Under Buyer Representation we ARE looking after your best interests.
Let’s start looking and get to the short list.
3) We’ve Found It!
Next comes the offer. This can be nail biting time especially if there are competing offers. You’re in capable hands….we’ve been through this a few times.
Your offer will always contain 2 clauses – a financing clause and home inspection clause. There may be more clauses but that will depend on the property and person.
4) Our Offer Has Been Accepted
Woohoo….our offer has been accepted. Now what? Time is truly of the essence. It’s time to arrange for a home inspector and get your papers to the bank. The conditional periods are usually 7 – 10 days. Time flies during this period.
5) Fulfillment of Conditions (sometimes called ‘waivers’)
This is the next piece of paper that gets signed saying that you are happy with the building inspection and the bank is happy with the house. Once these papers are signed, it’s official, you’ve bought a house. The next stop is the lawyers.
This all sounds easy….and it really is, but there are still a number of things that have to be done.
We have that list waiting for you and we’ll walk you through each step of the way until the day you pick up your keys. We don’t disappear after that but on the day of moving…..we’re busy…..;-)