Buying a new home as an amateur home-buyer is not an easy job. You will face many difficulties during home selection process, arranging funds, dealing with banks & many other post buying problems. As a new home buyer, you have learned several important lessons through live scenarios. You can find other useful resources through online contents & newsletters. In this discussion, I am going to address some unique tips which home-buyers normally forget or avoid.
1. List up your necessities – You should give priority to things which are important to you. Make a list of those must-have things you would expect in your new home. You might get emotionally attached to the home you visit, but make sure to cross check each aspect you have noted in your list. You must compare the new home with your existing one & see if it will make you satisfied with all your required components.
2. List up & check your expenses – List up all your expenses oriented to home-buying , repair & maintenance. Starting from the principal amount, include the interest, insurance & tax amount, utility cost & any upgrades which you would prefer in future. You should communicate with your real estate agent and ask for a estimated commission amount you'll have to pay them for buying a new home. Make a call to utility companies for getting an estimate & see whether you can avail a budget plan. You must not forget to consider your transportation cost as you would purchase the house in suburbs which might be far from your workplace. You will get a clear view about your home-affordability after calculating those expenses, it will help you decide if you are worthy enough to afford the house or not.
3. List up the available grants & fundings you'll get – You will need to know about several fund resources & govt. grants which can be helpful for your home-buying funding. Apart from the lucrative federal grants, you may also avail special plans like - profession based funding plans (for farmers, doctors, teachers etc.) or the area based plans which is available to aid the rural/poverty effected areas. If you can choose the right funding option, it can be said that there will be less chance for you to miss out a great deal.
4. Think wisely for the future options – Before purchasing the house, you must consider your future plans associated with the house. For an example - you'll need a bigger house if you have plans to live as a joint family along with your in-laws, elderly relatives & specially with new-born babies. If you decide to stay in your new home just for a limited time period, may be you should think about reselling it & its future potential buyers.
5. Check the homeowners association contract prior purchasing – In future, if you want to rent out your house fully & wanted to move in to another place, then you should first choose a perfect neighborhood for living. The more facilities exists in the neighborhood, the greater will be the chances for renting out a house easily. But at first you should verify whether or not the homeowners association (HOA) contract allows you to rent out your house in that neighborhood or not. So, get a copy of the HOA contract before opting the house.
6. Check the contract papers before finalizing the deal – Buying a house is one of the biggest investments a person could ever make. So, you have the authority to understand every aspect of your contract. If you do not understand any clause of the contract, you can consult your mortgage broker or attorney to clarify the terms. Never sign a contract before knowing it properly.
7. View your neighborhood demographic - Learn about the social life of your neighborhood. A good demographic neighborhood will be much more beneficial than any other locality. If you have plan to live in a neighborhood which is consumed by poverty, there is a greater chance for you to not getting your desired facilities. It is because your life-style could be much higher than your neighbors. So, there might be a problem for you to make adjustments. Later on you might find difficulties to sell the house also.
Apart from the above given ideas, you can also depend upon your past experience & use all the old advices you have tried out while buying your last home. Some authentic methods like – securing emergency funds, credit card management to shape up your credit score etc can be much useful for you.