If you are thinking about buying your first home, you need all the help you can get. Luckily, you can find help online, which makes the process of buying a home much easier. Here are some tools that will help you during all stages of buying a home:
Knowing How Much House You Can Afford
If you want to know how much house you can afford, you need to understand your financial situation well. When you have a budget and know your assets, you will be able to look at the homes you can afford realistically.
Here are some tools that will help you to figure out which homes you can afford:
Budget worksheet – with this tool, you will be able to know how much you usually spend in the long and short term. This information comes in handy when figuring out which home you can afford. Moreover, the loan qualifying process can be less stressful once you understand your financial situation.
Mortgage calculator – you can use a free mortgage calculator to figure out your monthly payment after providing your interest rate, mortgage amount, and loan term.
Affordability calculator – this tool will help you to figure out how much you can afford to pay, including the amount of money you will need for a down payment.
Searching for a Home
If you want to end up with the right house for your needs, you should know how to browse for homes online. Nowadays, you can use tools that allow you to get a close up look into houses that are up for sale. Before investing your money and time into an actual tour, you should use the following tools:
Multiple listing services – this service makes it easier to see the homes that are available in a given area. Some listing sites also offer phone apps, which make things much less complicated.
Non-MLS – this refers to independent sites that allow you to view houses that are on sale.
By owner sites – if you know what you are looking for, you should consider visiting sites such as craigslist for specific listings.
Visiting Houses
Once you look at several houses online, it is time to visit them in person. You can use tools and gadgets to capture the house tours.
Websites with realtor questions – if you do not know the right questions to ask a realtor, you should go online and look at common questions that people ask.
Cameras and audio recorders – during your first tour of a house, you need to take pictures and record everything that your realtor says for future reference. Doing so will allow you to make the best decision based on evidence instead of going with your gut.
Checking the Neighborhood
Before you decide to put down a payment, you need to know more about the neighborhood that your dream house is in. You have to conduct thorough research to avoid buying a good house in a bad neighborhood.
Here are some things that you can do:
Visit your potential neighbors – you should set aside one day to visit different prospective neighbors because they might have important information. Moreover, you need to speak with the administrators of local schools if you want to place your child in a nearby school.
Take a homebuyer class – taking a class will help you to choose the best house for your needs. If you do not have the patience to sit through a class, you can just speak to a housing counselor.
Buying a home is one of the most important decisions that you will make in life; you should use the tools carefully.
