House Hunters
Finding your dream home doesn't have to be stressful.
SO ,you want to buy a home? Learn from my mistakes and the occasional decent decision as I lead you down the path to buying a home with the help of your iPhone. My wife and I were married three months before we received a financial windfall and felt an urge to settle down into a home. It took us two months to find, buy, and move into an adorable little home in a cute neighborhood of my home city. We experienced a lot of frustration as we navigated buying a home for the first time, but we made it through everything, including an Ikea trip after we moved in!
GeT YoUR FinanceS in ORdeR
Before you get into the home-buying game, make sure you're able to provide a down payment. For firsttime home buyers, this can be as little as 3 percent of the value of a home. For second home purchases and beyond, you'll need a lot more money for a down payment. You'll also need a good faith payment (a.k.a. earnest money) of at least one thousand dollars to show you're serious about buying a particular piece of property. The amount of this payment will vary, and you get it back if for any reason you or the seller backs out of the transaction.
To get your finances in check, you can use a budget app like my personal favorite You Need a Budget ($7/month), Mint (free), or financial guru Dave Ramsey's app EveryDollar (free, $9.99/month for Plus). Following Ramsey's methods got me totally out of debt in under six months. Then, save up for that down payment and ensure your finances are ready for a thorough review by your bank.
Is your credit score not the best? That's okay. There are a number of apps out there to help you raise your credit score, including CreditKarma (free) and Lending Tree (free). Of course, the most important way to raise your credit is to get out of debt and stay out of debt, and the budget apps mentioned above can help you do that.
Find a Real ESTaTe AgenT
The first and most important thing, especially if you're new to home buying, is to find a real estate agent. An agent can help guide you through the process, giving you peace of mind. Their services are free of charge unless you actually purchase a home, at which time they take a percentage of the home price as a commission (usually 6 percent), which comes from the proceeds of the home sale.
How do you find a good agent? Simple! Ask around. Ask friends and family or even post on Facebook groups. You're guaranteed to find several recommendations just by asking.
Get a Preapproval Letter
The second thing you'll need to do is to get a preapproval letter from your chosen mortgage lender. What this preapproval letter does is provide the sellers with a more solid guarantee of financial backing, so that they don't go through the process of selling their home to a buyer who can't come up with the money.
The easiest way I've found is to go to Lending Tree (free) and fill out your information. You'll receive a number of offers based on the information you've given. Don't fret about your choices here, just be upfront about what you can afford, and then later on in the process you'll come back to your lender and can adjust numbers up or down.
Others have found Notes (preinstalled) or Simplenote (free) to be of tremendous help in this process. With those apps, you can scan, fill out, sign, and even fax documents to your lender during this somewhat extensive process. This all depends on your lender though; some have specialty programs or secured documents that do not work with those apps.
Find a Home
If you're doing the house hunt by yourself, you've got three apps on your side for total coverage of your intended search area: Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com (all free). You would also be surprised at how many great homes you can find listed on Facebook, but those are normally listed by owner.
Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com all offer similar experiences, although I've found Zillow to be the most accurate and up to date, as every listing from a realtor feeds directly into the app. You'll normally type in an area or move the map around to show an area to search for. You'll then adjust several variables, including price and how many bedrooms and bathrooms you want. You can also search by square footage of the home, the lot size, and more options that vary by app, but are of much less importance.
Planning Your Move
So you've bought the home of your dreams? Fantastic! Now you have to move. I strongly recommend taking inventory of your belongings while you're packing. Not only will this help with your move, it will be useful in case something unforeseen happens and you need to make a home insurance claim.
Let's talk about making lists first. In the past, I used Apple's Reminders and Notes apps, but then I tried Any.do (free, $3/ month) and Simplenote (free) and can't go back. They would have made the move even easier, considering how quick and versatile they are compared to the stock apps.
One list I recommend making is for night one in your new home. This should include things like a toothbrush and change of clothes. Don't get caught trying to hunt through boxes to find something; pre-pack it all in an easy-to-access box.
Before You Move in
Before you move into your new home, clean the house or hire a cleaning service to do it for you. Seriously, do a deep clean. You'll feel a lot better about it after. Then do any small home improvement projects that will be a hassle to do after you move in. One of the best things I did was switch out all of my outlets for child-proof ones from Lowe's. Lowe’s (free) has a well-organized app that helps you find all the hardware and appliances you need in order to finish those small (or big) home improvement projects. It even tells you which aisle and section to find a particular item in your local store.
Next up is the free Ikea app (get a family card if you can). If you don't live near an Ikea, you can always go to Walmart, but I like Ikea more. The best strategy I can give you for Ikea is to make a list, stick to it, and make sure you either print out the list by tapping “Sort by location in self-service area” or take screenshots of the locations of items on the app. You'll frequently lose cell service in the store.
Ikea also has an app called Ikea Place (free) that lets you visualize where all your new furniture should go before the heavy lifting happens. Pre-planned is prepared! This app is Ikea-specific but excellently made. RoOomy (Free) is a great alternative if the flat-pack isn't your thing. This app functions similarly, turning pictures of your home into augmented reality on your screen, enabling you to drag and drop furniture directly into your digital living space. All of the products listed on the app are for sale from Wayfair, Crate & Barrel, Target, and other suppliers.
Good Luck!
With these tips, you'll find that home buying doesn't have to be a stressful process. As long as you plan everything out, get a real estate agent, and be honest about your finances (go for the 30-year fixed and pay an additional payment every year), you too can get into the home of your dreams and do it smoothly.