Well I think that weather or not this is your first, Second or Third home purchase these steps will help any home Buyer accomplish a smooth home buying experience.

1. Find a Mortgage company or Loan Officer and give them all the info. that they may require in order to get the ball rolling. By doing this you not only get the process moving in the right direction, you also will find out what you are actually qualified to buy, (Payment & Purchase Price). You will also have an ideal of how much money you will need for your down payment & closing cost. Remember when you search for a Mortgage company it is like searching for a new car, interview more than one Mortgage company and see who has the lowest loan cost. Ask for a good faith estimate from each lender.

2. O.K. this is a hard one, find a good Real Estate Agent that lives or works in the areas that you may be looking at. Now #1 & #2 can be done at the same time but it will help your Real Estate Agent in his/her home search for you if he or she knows what they are looking for price wise.

3. Alright, we are ready to start looking for your dream home. Try not to over whelm your brain by scheduling so many homes that you can not remember which one is which. Even as agents we can go through so many homes and it is hard to keep up with all of them, so looking at 7 to 10 homes in a day is plenty, unless you are really pressed for time (Out of State Buyers).

4. Carry a camera with you and a note pad to help you remember each home. I like to use a scoring system for location, paint, condition, bedrooms, layout ect……. from 1 to 10 this has proved to be very helpful in comparing homes especially when its gets down to your top three or four picks.

5. Remember it is not your agents job to sell you on any specific home, the right home for you will sell itself. As an agent, I will point out some of the positive and negative points of a home if there are any.

6. You have found your dream home and it is time to write an offer. Writing an offer is not guess work, your agent will do a CMA (Comparable Market Analysis) to see where this home should be priced at to insure you the Buyer  are not going to offer to pay to much. The home has to appraise or the banks will not lend on it. Once you have an offer on the table, time is of the essence, meaning if you do not respond A.S.A.P. there could be another offer come in and buy the home.(So Move Quickly)!!!