Buy your dream house with confidence.

So, you want to buy a house—now what? Buying a home is an emotional and exciting experience. You may also be wondering along the way—what am I missing? This is a common question and the reason you need a real estate expert on your side. Here’s how the buying process works from start to finish.

• Do some preliminary online searching. Check into what homes are selling for in the areas you’re interested in to give you an idea of what you’re looking for. This will help later on when communicating your wish list with your real estate agent.
• Find an agent. A good real estate agent will help you navigate the process every step of the way. Your friends and family will be great sources—see if any of your trusted contacts have someone they recommend.
• Get pre-approved. To get pre-approved for a mortgage, you’ll need to get some paperwork ready: pay stubs, W-2s, bank account statements, tax returns for the past two years, credit lines, etc. Your real estate agent will likely have some recommendations for good local lenders. Do your due diligence and shop around for a lender that can help you best with your specific situation. Remember, the amount your lender approves you for is a maximum – this is by no means necessarily what you "should" spend.
• Look at homes. Be patient at this stage. Your real estate agent may show you a variety of homes to get your reaction on features they think you’ll like. Give your agent detailed feedback so they can show you homes that are perfectly suited to you. Sometimes, this process can take months or years—So be patient. Also, make sure you let friends and family know you’re looking for a new home--you may even find out about an amazing home before it hits the market.
• Make an offer. Once you’ve found your dream home, you may want to move quickly. Your agent will guide you on a reasonable first offer to start negotiations based on market conditions. Also, make sure you consider closing costs, which will be around 3-5% of the purchase price if you are financing the home.
• Negotiate. Prepare to go back and forth with the seller a few times on price and terms. Your real estate agent will be your advocate here and try to get you, their client, as much as possible for your money while being fair and respectful to the seller and their real estate agent.
• An accepted offer. Pop the champagne! If you reach an agreement, you’ll make a deposit to an escrow account to show good-faith. Escrow is usually 30-45 days where the seller takes the house off the market with the contractual expectation that you’ll purchase the house - provided you don’t find any serious problems during the inspections and appraisal.
• Do a home inspection. Even if the home appears to be flawless, there’s no substitute for having a professional inspector review the property for quality, safety, and general condition of your potential home. You don’t want to be surprised with a home that needs a lot of unexpected repairs. If the inspection reveals undisclosed serious defects, you should try to negotiate further to have the seller make repairs or offer concessions. You’ll also likely have the option to withdraw your offer and get your deposit money back if you are not able to come to an agreement with the seller.
• Title Search. Your real estate agent and lender will send your contract to a Title company that will run the title of the property to make sure that it is clean and unencumbered. You want to make sure that there are no outstanding liens against the property or anything that would prohibit the seller from conveying clean title.
• Appraisal. If you are getting a loan for the home, your lender will order an appraisal of the property. The home will need to appraise for the purchase price or greater. If the home does not appraise for the purchase price, you can try to renegotiate the price with the seller or cover the difference with cash. If you cannot come to an agreement with the seller and do not wish to cover the difference, you will likely have a contingency in your contract that allows you to release from the purchase.
• Closing. When your negotiations with the seller are successful, you are through inspections and appraisal, and your loan has been approved through underwriting, your lender will issue the magic words - "clear to close." At your closing, you’ll sign lots of paperwork, bring the final cash to close, and then will be handed the keys. Congratulations, you are a home owner!!