Home Buying Tips For First- Time Buyers – Infographic

After a few months of researching properties, visiting open houses, and scheduling home tours, Matt and I are happy (and relieved) to say that we are officially homeowners!

Also, in case you missed it…THE EAGLES WON THE SUPER BOWL! What an incredible game! No one thought we could do it and we did! I’m still on cloud nine. It seems this year just keeps getting better!

As amazing as it feels to say that we’re homeowners, a part of me is still in shock. We found the perfect home for us and our future family. No more renting, no more community rules to oblige by. We have the freedom to do as we please with it, not to mention A LOT more space.

Lately, we’ve been busy making our house feel like a home. We joined the Ikea club and made our way there a month or so ago to buy furniture. I never understood the Ikea craze until we went. You can find everything under the sun. We bought living room furniture and some home appliances at great prices. We still have a ways to go, but it’s falling into place.

An Exciting, Overwhelming Experience

As exciting as it is to be a homeowner, the home-buying process can be overwhelming. While we knew this going in, we were a bit blinded by our eagerness to buy.

Property shopping is a rollercoaster ride. We’d find a house we loved online only to realize the pictures online were deceiving. There were also quite a number of houses that we couldn’t agree on. If I loved it, Matt didn’t, and vice versa. The worst was finding a house in our price range that had all we wanted only to learn it had a lot of hidden problems and needed a lot of work. When we saw the house we eventually bought, the seller accepted our offer, only for us to have to counteroffer another interested buyer’s offer. The attorney review phase had me on edge and it felt like three of the longest days of my life. There was so much paperwork to sign that my signature eventually looked like that of a three-year-old.

In the end, it’s all worth it; although I had to keep reminding myself of that. But, look at it this way: You are building equity instead of throwing it away and you have the freedom to create the living environment that you always wanted. To say the least, I’m very happy that the buying and moving process is over.

So, I thought I’d use this blog to share our home-buying experience and what we’ve learned through it for those interested in buying a home in the near future.

A Few Words of Advice

• Visit the home several times: Visit it at different times and on different days to get a feel for the environment and traffic.
• There is no such thing as the perfect home: Unless you build it yourself, changes will need to be made in order for the house to be exactly as you want it to.
• Problems are investments: It’s easy to view any issues or repairs the house needs as financial burdens, but look at them as investment opportunities. Repairs and upgrades will increase the value of your home.
• If you don’t like it, don’t settle: A home is a huge purchase. Don’t buy it if you aren’t completely satisfied with it.

Happy home shopping!