Steps to Take Now to Be a Home Owner in 2013

Buying your first home is a process, not an event, so you have to have an action plan that will get you through this process with your finances and sanity intact.

Here are 5 things you can do now to help you get ready to buy your first home in 2013:

1) Test drive the lifestyle – Owning costs more than renting and most first-time home buyers find they will have to make some lifestyle sacrifices. It might be as simple as cutting out that daily mocha grande frappuccino or packing a lunch two or three days a week. Whatever those sacrifices may be, you might want to find out if you can adjust BEFORE you buy instead of after.

2) Get your financial house in order – Lenders are examining loan applications more closely than ever before. Even with interest rates at record lows getting your first time home buyer loan is not getting any easier, but it’s not the horror story that the media portrays IF you’ve chosen a lender because they know what they’re doing and not because they have the cheapest rate you could find.

     * How to improve you credit score

3) Check out the first time home buyer incentives –  There are many first-time home buyer incentives such as down payment assistance programs and tax rebates.
    
     * contact me to find out the various incentives for first-time home buyers

4) Find a Lender and Realtor who understand first-time home buyer programs.
This is probably backwards from the way you you’ve heard it’s done, but your chances of being successful in your home search increase dramatically when you know how you’re going to pay for your first home before you find it.

You need a a REALTOR who represents YOU!, not the seller, bank or builder.

5) Quit procrastinating! – If you’ve made the decision that 2013 will be the year you become a first-time home buyer, get up off the couch and get started. While interest rates have remained near record lows, home values have been creeping up for the past year and rents are increasing at an even faster pace, so it’s not getting any cheaper!

     * Planning ahead for home ownership

We have helped many first time home buyers and their families make the right decision when buying their first home.

They all have one thing in common, they contacted me.