You’re going to talk to a lender who will help you determine the budget for your home. My preferred lenders will also help you access down payment assistance or give you a credit improvement plan if it would benefit you.

We’ll take your budget and apply it to our home search. This is when we get to go look at homes in person. We determine if the home fits your needs, and if it does, we go to step 3.

We found a home that you want. Now we need to write a contract that the seller will accept. There are many points we can negotiate. This is where my research on the homes, my knowledge of the market, and my contract expertise comes in. This is the first money you’ll spend. Your Earnest Money Deposit. It’s negotiable, but I would recommend that you plan for at least 1% of the purchase price.

We call this time Due Diligence. It’s our time to hire all the experts to check out the house to help us determine the full condition of the home. This costs money and it’s important. We can also walk away during this time for any reason or no reason at all.

Assuming you get through Due Diligence and you’re ready to move forward to purchasing the home, the lender will hire an appraiser to determine the value of the home. This is usually done in 5-10 days, depending on how busy the market is at the time.

We get past inspections, the appraisal meets our purchase price (or we renegotiate), you have submitted every possible document to the lender, and you are ready to pay the down payment and get a hand cramp signing documents. EXCITING!!

You signed all the papers, you paid your monies, the seller moved out, and you have your keys! It’s time to celebrate all of that hard work and stress has paid off. You are a homeowner! Yay! Still not enough info? Read the full guide here.