If you are one of the many people entering the housing market in the next few months, it’s smart that you are reading this in order to familiarize yourself with the home buying process. First time home buyer education empowers you and your family to engage in the experience with knowledge and confidence.
Before you jump right in and start searching for a home, it’s best to talk to a mortgage lender about pre-qualifying for a mortgage. 4 big advantages of getting pre-qualified prior to finding your dream home are:
#1: Creates a roadmap of where to start looking. Pre-qualification provides guidelines as to how much house you can afford. The last thing you want to do is fall in love with a property that can never be yours. As a first time home buyer, knowledge of your purchasing power is vital in choosing a house you can pay for without struggling to meet payments.
#2: Increases the chance of getting the house of your dreams. Pre-qualified buyers often win out in a situation where there are multiple offers. Sellers are more confident taking an offer if they know the buyer is already qualified to pay the asking price. On a home with more than one offer, you gain an advantage by being pre-qualified.
#3: Contributes to greater negotiation leverage. Pre-qualification shows you are serious about purchasing a home, and this gives you clout when hammering out a final decision. Sellers may stand a better chance of yielding to your requests if you are pre-qualified EVEN if there are higher offers on the table, because they don’t want to derail a sure deal.
#4: Decreases buying cycle time. The pre-qualification process does a bunch of the heavy lifting on the front end of the deal to make it more efficient. From running financials to pulling credit reports, your mortgage lender will handle a good portion of the paperwork during the pre-qualification process. This greases the wheels for speedy action once you settle on a home.
Good advice should be part of first time home buyer education, and a key factor is; begin at the beginning. By understanding the advantages of and taking steps to becoming pre-qualified, you are able to pursue your future home with greater confidence and increased negotiating power. For more information about purchasing your first home, download our eBook now!
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