All Articles Mortgage Loan Basics
If you know what to expect – and you have a trusted team of real estate and mortgage lending professionals to guide you – finding and financing your first home can be an exciting and rewarding experience. Here’s what you need to know.
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Obtain a Mortgage Pre-qualification
• Before you begin house hunting, learn how much financing is available to you. • Strengthen your bargaining position with sellers. -
Choose a Real Estate Agent
• Select a reputable professional who knows the market and will listen to your needs. • Ask agents for references from former clients. -
Find the right home
• Determine your family’s needs. • Create a wish list of desirable features of a new home. • Take notes as you preview homes. -
Make an offer
• Your real estate agent presents your offer to the seller, who will accept, make a counter offer, or reject it. • When a price is settled upon, you and the seller sign a Purchase Agreement, defining the terms of the sale -
Have the home inspected
Hire a professional home inspector after the offer has been accepted to provide and in-depth look at the basic systems of the house, to reveal any safety hazards and give you a chance to reconsider the purchase. -
The home will be appraised
An appraisal, required by your mortgage lender, is a formal, written estimate of current market value of the house being purchased, as prepared by a licensed real estate appraiser. -
Obtain Title Insurance
• Owners Title Insurance is optional, and protects you in the event the property you are purchasing is encumbered by liens or if there is confusion in legal rights of ownership. • Lenders Title Insurance is required, to protect the lender from such defects in the title or deed. -
Close on the property
A closing agent coordinates and distributes all the paperwork and funds, and ownership of the property is transferred from seller to buyer.
Source:
American Bankers Association
