7 Things You Should Know Before Buying a Home in 2019
Reading Time: 5 minutes For anyone deciding to buy a home in 2019, you’ll be all too aware of the challenges involved. Buying a home is tough work; buying the right home is even harder. If you aren’t quite sure where to start, though, there are some useful ideas that you can use below.
If you stick to the below advice, you might find it a bit easier to develop a home purchase that you can be truly happy with. So, where should you begin when it comes to buying a house in 2019?
Table of Contents
1. Find a good real estate agent
First and foremost, you need someone good helping you to make the purchase possible. Start off by spending some time looking for a good real estate agent. Look at someone who has experience in getting you the kind of home that you want, and who has a reputation as a good negotiator.
You want someone who is able to come in and command the room, offering their expertise and knowledge immediately. If you are ever unsure about an estate agent, then simply looking around for what others are saying online: reviews are normally telling.
2. Know what you can afford
Also, be sure to spend some time looking at what you can afford. If you were serious about making sure you can buy a home, then you should be serious enough to budget. Don’t just dive into the first property that sounds somewhat affordable: spend some time getting to know what you need to understand. Use a mortgage loan payment calculator to see what your monthly payments would be like.
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The property that you eventually choose to move into is going to be the right one for you, more or less. However, it has to be the more that you can afford still. Work out the cost minus the actual investment scale that you can afford per month, using a calculator like this one. Before you make any kind of decision, spend some time looking at the kind of prices that you can actually afford. Once you do know that, look at what you can afford to spend monthly yet still live a comfortable life: this is what you can afford.
3. Go through the pre-approval process
The next thing that you should look to do is make sure that you start paying attention to the pre-approval process is. This is going to be useful, as it will help you to verify if your costing plans above were accurate enough. Speaking with a lender, you can work with them to help agree on a specific number that you can then use to start making more intelligent decisions on your finances.
It will help you to get the pre-approval that you are seeking. You will need to provide accurate financial information, including a list of all of your debts and your assets. If you wish to make this work in your favor, then it pays to turn up with a good idea of what you can afford. Then, you are much more likely to come out of the pre-approval process with a figure that you can be happy with.
4. Don’t get carried away by the home mortgage interest deduction
One problem that you might have when it comes to getting a home purchased is the promise of a home mortgage interest deduction. Many people get quite carried away when they hear this, though, and it’s important that you do all that you can to try to temper some expectation around this.
If you are worried that you might be getting involved too deep, take a look at that deduction. Is it really going to help you make the future financially viable for you? That can be the next hardest thing to work out. If you are going to try to change the way that you live in your new home, then you should make sure that the property is still within your grasp.
Don’t let that promise of an interest deduction make you go over your head and start shooting for properties that are out of reach.
5. Know the market
Best of all, you should spend as much time as you can get to know the market. Look around for where the prices seem to be offering the most value. Some locations will naturally have more value than others. Some locations might seem to be lower quality due to the market price, but in reality, they could make excellent investments.
Take some time to look at the market and work out where you might be going wrong. Sometimes, the best property for you isn’t the most expensive and opulent one: so, get to know the market prior to purchase.
6. Get to know specific and special market quirks
Also, the market is a location that goes through rapid changes all the time. News stories and long-term community plans could quickly change the entire reputation of a location. You could purchase a home in a ‘rough’ area, only to find that a regeneration scheme makes the property worth far more than it was when you bought it.
With the help of your estate agent, you can quickly work out what quirks you can use to your advantage. There are always little things that you can use to your advantage in every area that you go to buy property in, so use them to your advantage.
7. Search for a house that fits your life
Lastly, make sure that you get a home suited to your life. Are there just two of you? Are you not planning on having children? Then you likely don’t need a four-bedroom household. Think about the location as much as anything else: a home that fits your lifestyle is one that you need to be ready to invest in.
Don’t just buy the house with the best status or the highest price, though. Look at the cost of the property, the location, and the amenities nearby. Is it really the property that best suits your lifestyle?
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Co-Authored With
Sean Price is a community manager at RightSwitch, he has a passion for web design and user experience and when not working enjoys rugby, cycling and swimming.
