When you are in the market to buy your first home, there are a number of steps that you should follow to make the entire process go more smoothly and successfully. These can be divided into several categories. You start with the pre-qualification process, then move on to a real estate agent, and finally the inspections and appraisals.

Pre Qualification Process

A fantastic way to begin your first time home search and purchase is to start out by pre-qualifying for your mortgage, or home loan, from the bank. You do this by going to the bank to sit down with a loan officer. They will help you to fill out the application for a mortgage. Once you are approved, the bank will give you a pre- qualification letter, which will make your negotiating and purchase of a first time home much simpler. There is usually an approximately £50 application fee that you will have to pay.

In order to qualify for such a mortgage, you must have some down payment money to put into the home purchase. It used to be that you might get away with nothing down, but in today\’s troubled housing market, you might expect to pay even twenty percent down in order to satisfy a bank that you are fully on board with the mortgage commitment. They will usually only agree to loan you from two to three times as much money as you earn annually. You will have to prove to them that you have a solid two years of stable employment history. Finally, you will have to have good, if not great, credit to show the bank in the form of your credit report that they will obtain on your behalf from the three credit bureaus.

Finding A Real Estate Agent

The next step revolves around finding a real estate agent. You can do a great deal of preliminary searching yourself by looking at houses that are offered for sale on various Internet web sites, which will help you to be more aware of the type of house that you want to purchase. In the end though, a real estate agent will help you immeasurably in the search, especially as they know all of the property developments in the area.

It does not cost you any money to have this real estate agent search on your behalf. This is because the home sellers pay for the Realtor services. You benefit from their ability to show you available properties and to answer any questions that you have about the home purchasing process. With your pre-qualification letter, the real estate agent will know what houses that you can afford to buy, which will help you to avoid any disappointment down the road.

Getting Disclosures, Inspections, and Appraisals

Once you select the house that you want to purchase, then you should obtain a disclosure from the home seller. The disclosure represents the problems of the house that the seller is aware of and has to share with you according to the law. You should also get a professional inspector to do a full inspection. This may set you back £350 or more, but it will save you possibly thousands of dollars in repairs and heartaches if the inspection finds problems that the disclosure did not reveal. You can use this inspection report to reduce the cost of the house, or to get the problems addressed before you buy the home.

Lastly, be aware that the bank will get an appraisal done on your new house before they let will you close on it. You can hardly blame them for wanting to make sure that the house is really worth the money that you are borrowing from them and giving the seller for it. The bank will get the appraisal set up and require that you pay for it. This is generally not a negotiable point, since they are the ones with the mortgage money to lend you.

Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Shepherd Gilmour, offering property for sale Manchester.

Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Shepherd Gilmour (http://www.shepherdgilmour.com), Manchester estate and letting agents.

Author Bio: Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Shepherd Gilmour, offering property for sale Manchester.

Category: Real Estate
Keywords: manchester estate agents, property for sale, selling property