These errors can cost you the chance to buy your dream home, and they can set you back financially.
By Geoff Williams, Contributor | June 23, 2017
When you’re buying a home, a lot can go wrong. Your seller, the lender, the appraiser or your real estate agent could do something to inadvertently sabotage the purchase of your new home. And, yes, even you could make a mistake. Homebuyers make plenty of them.
And in today’s home buying market, where demand is high and supply isn’t, you can’t afford to make any mistakes. This doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what could go wrong, but if you’re looking to buy a house, do what you can to avoid making these classic home buying blunders.
Not looking at homes before you’re ready to make an offer. This is the period of home buying where you’re window shopping and learning about buying a house. But many home buyers skip this stage, says Kate Ziegler, a Realtor in Boston.
She recommends going to open houses as soon as you know you’re in the mindset that you want to buy a house. Just know that even if you fall in love with a home, you won’t make an offer since you haven’t lined up the financing yet.
“The more properties you can visit in the early stages of a search, the more confident you’ll feel signing the offer when you do find The One,” Ziegler says.
By looking at a lot of homes early in the process, “it will help you learn what you’re really looking for, give you practice evaluating potential homes with some emotional detachment, since you’re not ready to offer anyway, and motivate you to keep moving forward as you see things come on and off the market,” she says.
And this goes for any homeowner, not necessarily just first-time buyers, Ziegler says, adding: “If you’ve been off the market for more than a year, you’re out of practice.”
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