Setting First-Time Home Buyers On The Right Path

It’s part of the American dream, right? Finally owning your own home after years of renting or living under someone else’s roof. This is your next step to really making something yours: through the decor, the paint colors, the garden, ahem…the mortgage. You’re ready to join the prestigious group of first-time home buyers.

Do you already feel overwhelmed because we said the word mortgage, and now you’re having second thoughts on your decision? Don’t run just yet! We will help take away the overwhelm by providing a simple guide and some free resources. Just keep reading.

Step 1 – Get pre-qualified for a loan

The first step to take, even before finding that dream home online, actually, especially before finding that dream home, is to get pre-qualified for a loan.

This step is super important because without it, you don’t know:

What you can realistically afford
What your down payment would need to be
What type of property you can purchase

Choosing the right lender is also a big part of this step. Reputation matters. Being connected matters. Experience and quality of communication matters. The right lender will give you great support and competitive rates/fees.

Our preferred lender will always be The McDonald Group with Supreme Lending. Reach out to Meggan to learn more about the pre-approval process and how she can help you take the first step into getting that dream home.

Step 2 – Find the perfect agent and set up a consult

This step is the most important next to your pre-qualification. As first-time home buyers, it’s important that you find a real estate agent that you click with, that you trust and that you know will do the heavy lifting for you.

In order to ensure a good fit for the agent/buyer relationship and to make sure they know their stuff, interview them! Ask questions like:

How many transactions have you handled in your career and/or how long have you been in the business?
Have you succeeded for your clients in bidding wars and price negotiations?
What are some of your strengths as a realtor?
What’s your average list-to-sales-price ratio?
What separates you from your competition? (There are, after all, 12,000+ agents in the Kansas City metro.)
What is your process when working with a first-time home buyer?

These are just a few questions to guide you, but don’t hold back. Just like you want to make sure the relationship is a good fit, so should the realtor. So be prepared to answer questions they might send back to you.

It also helps if the realtor or real estate team you’re interested in, does some of the work for you by providing videos like this:

Step 3 – Look at homes (i.e. the fun part)

This is the step you probably took before step 1 or 2. We get it! It’s fun to dream and start looking at homes. And if you choose to work with one of the Dani Beyer Real Estate’s Buyer’s Agents, they’ll set you up with your own MLS portal that is customized to your wants and needs. That way, you’re not tempted to look outside of your budget and what is coming into the portal meets (most of) your specifications.

So far, none of these steps require you to spend a dime out of your own pocket. It’s once you find the home you want to put an offer on that you start to pay.

Below, you can see all of the steps. One of the free resources we offer first-time home buyers in a webinar that goes into more depth about your first-time home buying process. You’ll meet with a panel of our buyer’s agents, showing assistants and our preferred lender to hear directly from them on the details of each step along with an open question and answer time. This is such a valuable resource to any first-time home buyer. Even if you don’t decide to utilize one of our realtors, you’re getting fact-based information to utilize once you decide that you’re ready for this next big step.