While complicated, the home buying process is fairly straightforward and is easily understood. However, understanding everything that all the other players have to do is a daunting task, so we’re just going to concentrate on the Buyer and the decisions buyers typically have to make. Consult with your agent, he or she is a wealth of information and will help you in making your decisions. (click here for more on the Role of the Realtor)

But before you do anything, you should obtain a copy of your credit report from all three credit reporting agencies. I've underlined this because it will tell you how much or how little work you have to do up front. (click here for more on credit agencies) If you havent done this yet, stop what you're doing and go get them. Now! Then come back to this page and read the rest of it.

        1. You must first decide that home ownership is the right lifestyle for you at this time in your life. Consider job stability at your current location, your personal reasons for living in an owner-occupied home, amount of money you have available for purchasing the home (including closing costs, downpayment, moving costs, fix-up expenses, etc), type of community you want to live in, size of home you desire, home maintenance tasks (yard, recurring painting, minor repairs, insurance costs.

        2. Once you have decided that you want to own a home, you need to define the size, style (click here for a discussion of the different home types and life styles they offer), and other features you absolutely must have in your new home. Our “Buyer’s Needs Analysis” will help you identify these items. Additionally you also must decide how soon you want to move in. Consider your rental contract, costs to break, timing of personal commitments, timing of job commitments, job tenure for loan approval requirements, and so on. Most clients close on a home in 30-45 days, some in under two weeks if they have the loan process started. If you don’t want to buy for another year, starting to look at houses now will waste everyone’s time. But, you still want to have someone check your credit now in case there are errors, or repairs that need to be made, so go ahead and get pre-approved.

        3. Next you must identify your price range, which is based on two important, but different, principles. First is your ability to pay, or how much house can you fiscally afford? Most buyers will be obtaining a mortgage, and therefore will have to qualify with a mortgage lender for their loan. The pre-approval process will give you the maximum price point to search, based on the lender’s loan guidelines. The second is how much house payment are you comfortable having? Only you can decide this, because everyone’s lifestyle is different. Frequently, our buyer clients are preapproved for one price, but decide that their maximum price is much lower because immediately after closing they are getting two new cars, taking a cruise around the world, and then having children. All of which are going to be new items to their budget. For these reasons and others, you’ll be pre-approved with a reliable lender before we go look at candidate properties. Lastly, review this page for a discussion of your costs during the home buying process.

        4. Now comes the fun part: determining what area of town you want to live in. You’ve probably already got an idea of that, so finding a house that meets your needs in the areas you select can be done quickly at the computer. If you don’t already have a “Where” answer, then consider your commute, taxes, school systems, resale value, proximity to friends/relatives or recreational activities you participate in.

        5. Most buyers decide on their next home within two to three days of viewing properties. Some buyers take notes on every house they visit, because after the first dozen or so, it’ll be difficult to tell them apart. I highly recommend that you take notes on each and every property, whether you like it or not, and why. At the end of the day, we’ll review each others notes and create our “short list” of the best three to five homes for that day.

        6. The process of showing homes also provides you, the buyer, a framework of data from which you can correlate the features and benefits of various homes and the prices their owners are asking for them. This data will provide you the expertise to quickly decide if a home is overpriced, or if it is a real opportunity if priced below the market. Your opinion of Market Value will be crucial when we get to the point of writing an offer. So the education you obtain during the showings is one part of determining the price you’re going to offer.

        7. When you decide on which home you want to purchase, have two or three backups in case your number one choice doesn’t work out. Then we’ll research what other properties, with similar features and benefits, in that same area have sold for. We’ll write the offer, negotiate with the seller, and come to agreement in a finalized contract which you’ll need to send to your lender and start the loan application process.

        8. Most contracts are written with contingencies for inspections, financing, and so forth. Additionally, we can insert special stipulations for the seller to provide certain things. A typical inspection period is 10 days, which allows you to hire an independent inspector (click here for more on home inspectors), perform termite inspections (as required by your lender – make sure you check), investigate the community, HOA, and local area. We’ll then create an amendment to the contract formally asking the seller to remedy any problems we discover.

        9. Your next steps will be to remedy any special conditions your loan officer identified in their pre-approval letter and to stay in contact with your lender through the process. Often, when a loan package goes from the loan officer to underwriting, the underwriter will have additional information requirements. You should expeditiously provide them with what they need so you don’t delay the loan approval (which could breach your contract).

        10. During this time your agent will arrange a closing date and time with a closing attorney. The closing attorney will also order the title search, check for liens, obtain seller information and loan payoff data, assemble all the closing documents, integrate your lenders loan package into the process, and create a draft HUD-1 (Closing Statement).

        11. Additionally you’ll need to arrange for homeowners insurance (hazard) and have the declarations page delivered to the closing attorney prior to closing. Next will be choosing and ordering your utilities. Most can be done online at the Coldwell Banker Atlanta website, but you may (county dependent) have to personally put a deposit for some.

        12. Prior to closing, contact the closing attorney and find out how much money you’ll need to bring to the closing and in what form the money is to be in. Some clients wire transfer funds to the closing attorney, some bring a certified check, others can write a personal check.

        13. On the day of closing, bring the funds, two forms of photo ID, and whatever else your agent and the closing attorney tells you to bring. Once the closing is complete, you should have a set of keys, a sore hand from signing all the documents and a hearty congratulations from your agent.