Buying your 1st HOME

Buying your very own first place can be quite stressful. When me and DH went hunting for our first place, we followed this list here. It not only helped us to choose but we are now so well settled in as we were meant to be here! I just hope this list would help you all. But, the pointers mentioned here are based on my preferences. So, you need to get out your pen and paper and make your own wish list. Also, you need to jot down how flexible you are with certain pointers and which are those. These steps will surely help you and your realtor in getting your HOME. Enjoy the hunting process. It is so much fun if you are clear on what you need.

Here is the list that we followed based on our priority.

• Commute
• Longer commute had lower price range and more square feet houses
• Accessible to public transport for commuting to work place
• School district
• Since we don’t have kids yet, we chose the area with good primary and middle schools 
• Best school districts will have higher price and small homes
• Realtor
• Recommended by friends/family
• While choosing a realtor, it is very important that the person has good bargain sense. Also, the realtor should be such that he/she understands completely our needs and doesn’t waste our time/energy. You can provide them with your wish list :)
• We had 2 realtors. The 1st one we chose was directly by visiting the office and asking. Not at all a good experience. The second one was recommended by one of our neighbor. We had an amazing experience with that realtor. He understood completely what we wanted and would show us the homes accordingly. He was also a very good bargainer. Also, we were breaking our lease 8 months prior. So, he made sure we had another renter before we moved out of that apartment. Of course, the owner had no issues with us breaking the lease as long as he got the rent each month. So speak to the landlord. 
• Budget
• You need to request for pre-approval of loan. This would give you an idea of how much MAX you can spend.
• Then decide on an amount based on the monthly payments [which include the loan+ interest+ PMI (if any) + house tax (which will increase every year in most of the areas)]
• Some added monthly expense would be your monthly maintenance (if any)
• Down payment
•  You can pay anything starting from 3%. But if you pay less that 20% then you will have PMI each month for 5 years. So, you really need calculate this well. If you pay 20% down payment then you will not have any PMI. This will increase your monthly savings but decrease your current savings quite a bit. 
• Closing Cost
• This includes the appraisal, credit report, flood certification fee, title insurance (for both buyer and seller), house survey, transfer of taxes, local govt. charges, escrow account initial deposit, lawyers fee and couple of other things.
• Type of home – to be decided based on your needs and how much work can you do like snow removal, maintain yards
• Townhomes /Condo (usually with monthly maintenance you don’t need to worry anything outside the 4 walls of your home including roof)
• Single family house 
• Quality of home
• Move in ready
• Ready to renovate (could have added expenses apart from estimated)
• How old
• Newer homes – less maintenance, newer energy efficient appliances, less surprises in terms of problems
• Previous owners
• If you do not like pets, then make sure the homes that you look are well kept and does not smell of pets
• Or better choose which did not have pets
• Home Inspection
• Regardless of how old the house is, you would need an experienced Inspector. This would be done after you put in an offer. IMO, this is a must for every home. Especially get it checked for moisture content, roofing, MOLDS, overall structural design. You do not want to get sick or have the unwanted cost on you later. And, if anything serious comes up you can step back from that offer or renegotiate. Your realtor/lawyer will also guide you. 
• Resale value
• Definitely looked for something which would have a good resale value 
• GC/Visa
• Depends on your perspective/ you can wait for GC
• Builder /Community
• Wanted a safe community
• We have diverse population 
• Go for some known builders in your state (your realtor should be able to suggest and then google for their reviews)
• Parking
• Garage for us and extra parking spots for guests
• Home Insurance
• Shop around, and ask for the rates.
• You can also go for your home+auto insurance to get a better deal.
• There is something called Umbrella insurance which you might want to look into before finalizing. 
• Time frame
• I would say give about any time from 1 - 6 months.
• We saw 30 homes and selected 2 of them which met most of our criterias. Then we finalized based on the bargain and our monthly payment. We wanted a home which would not completely squeeze out our budget. We also had decided on how much we would like to save every month (a little flexible here).
• Mortgage  
• You would also need to shop around for lower mortgage rates. If your realtor is good, he/she will refer you. But, when you are shopping for loans make sure you have a good credit score. The better your score is, the better deal you can grab. And if due to any reason your score is not very good then try to improve it. Trust me this will be a BIG help w.r.t interest rates.
• Flood Zone
• Make sure you know if your home is not under the flood zone.
• And if it is, are you prepared to buy that?
• Gas / Electric Supplier
• Try to find out who the suppliers are and if they are good.
• Internet/TV/Phone
• Check for your options
• Final Day
• On the day of closing you will have to sign 100s of pages. So be prepared. 
• Also, you will have a final walk through before your closing. So, check and double check everything in the home as this would be your last chance.
• Like for eg, all was perfect in our home but on the closing day during our final walk through one of the appliances stopped working!! So, we made a condition that we will get it repaired and bill the amount to the seller. Both the parties agreed (the lawyers do the negotiation btw). And our lawyer held back some of the amount until the seller paid for the repairs. 

This information might be overwhelming at times but do not be discouraged. Doing some homework and writing down the pointers will definitely help you. Also, try to have your estimates a little on the higher end so anything less you spend will be a bonus. And you would be prepared for the expenses.

**DISCLAIMER**

This is my personal view point only. Please check and double check everything.