How To Save Thousands When Buying A Home

If you’re like most homebuyers, you have two primary considerations in mind when you start looking for a home. First, you want to find a home that perfectly meets your needs and desires, and second, you want to purchase this home for the lowest price possible. When you analyze those successful home buyers who have been able to purchase the home they want for thousands of dollars below a seller’s asking price, some common denominators emerge. Although your agents' negotiating skills are important, three additional key factors must come into play long before you ever submit an offer.

Step 1 is to make sure you know what you want. As simple as this sounds, many homebuyers don’t have a firm idea in their heads before they go out searching for a home. When you go shopping for a place to live, two homes are competing for your attention, the one that meets your needs, and the one that fulfills your desires. Your goal is to find one home that does both. But in the real world, this situation doesn’t always occur because we all have limited funds available. When you’re looking at homes, you’ll find that you fall in love with one or another home for entirely different reasons. Is it better to buy the 4-bedroom home with room for your family to grow, or the one with the big eat-in kitchen that romances you with thoughts of big weekend family brunches? What’s more important, a big backyard, or proximity to your child’s school? Far too often people buy a home for the wrong reasons and then regret their decision when the home doesn’t meet their needs.

Step 2 is don’t shop with stars in your eyes. Satisfy your needs first. If you’re lucky, you’ll find a home that does this and also fulfills your desires. The important thing is to understand the difference before you get caught up in the excitement of looking. Consider hiring an agent who offers a “Buyer Profile System” or “Househunting Service,” which takes the guesswork out of finding just the right home that matches your needs. This type of program will cross-match your criteria with all available homes on the market and supply you with printed information on an ongoing basis just the instant they become available. A program like this helps homeowners take off their rose-colored glasses and, affordably, move into the home of their dreams.

Step 3 is to stay within the price range you’ve set. One of the first and most important steps in the home-buying process is to determine what your maximum purchase price is. This could very well be less than you are approved for. Determine the payments that you are comfortable with, not your bank, and then stick to that. Otherwise, price creep will set in. You’ll start looking at homes that are a little higher and then a little higher yet, and of course, they will be nicer homes because they’re more expensive, but the result is you can easily make an emotional purchasing decision that you regret later because the payments are higher than you budgeted. Be disciplined. If you don’t look at more expensive homes you won’t know what you're missing and you’ll stay within your price range.

Want more home-selling advice? Call Dwight Streu of the Dwight Streu Real Estate Team at 780-462-5002.

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