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.
Obtain a Mortgage Prequalification.
- 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.
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.
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.
American Bankers Association