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Top 10 Secrets To Successfully Buying A House

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Every home buyer wants his purchase to be a good investment. Read on for the top 10 secrets to successfully buying a house.

  1. Take your time: A home is a huge investment and, for many people, the largest purchase they will make in their lives. Once you buy a home, it is also not that easy to undo your decision and change your mind. As such, you want to make sure you take enough time, look at many homes, and really make sure you make the best decision for you.
  2. Get professional help: A real estate agent can provide you with access to listings of all the homes in your area. He can also use his connections in the field to keep you up-to-date on new homes going on the market so you don’t miss a bargain. In addition, as an expert within the market, he may be able to give you guidance on whether a house is a good deal, on what to offer on the house, and on whether he spots any potential problems you may not notice.
  3. Know what you can afford: Stretching to get into a house is usually a bad idea; you may be tight on money and not be able to pay for repairs and you may end up losing the home to foreclosure if you have a slight financial blip. Likewise, using creative financing to get into a house you can’t afford can also be the fast track to foreclosure when your mortgage payments rise and you can’t pay them.
  4. Research property values: You will want to understand what similar properties in the area are going for before you buy a house. That way, you will get a good idea of whether the price for a given home you are considering is reasonable or not.
  5. Focus on what matters: Location of the home is one of the keys to property value. Being in a good school district is another. While these things may not be the top of your list of qualifications for a home, a home is an investment as well as a place to live. By focusing on the proven things buyers look for, you can be assured you will be able to sell your home if you ever need to and that your property value is likely to rise.
  6. Use your imagination: Some homes can be a great bargain because homeowners can’t look past the ugly carpeting or overgrown lawn. Picture the home for what it could be, ignoring things that are easy to fix such as worn wallpaper. You can get the house for a good deal since other buyers weren’t as imaginative as you, and then use the extra money to fix up the home to the showplace you knew it could be.
  7. Take advantage of Internet resources: There are many different resources online designed to help home buyers. From Zillow.com, which gives you information on property values to Bank Rate which can help you compare mortgage loan cost, there are a wealth of websites out there that can help you in every step of the home buying process.
  8. Make use of the multiple listing service: The MLS is a database used by real estate agents to pool data on all the houses on the market. You can search the MLS online through multiple different websites or your realtor can give you access. Using this service, you can view literally thousands of houses easily with the click of your house, increasing the chances that you will find the home of your dreams.
  9. Think with your head: A home is a place to live, but it is also a huge expense and an investment. Make sure you don’t overpay or buy a home with problems you can’t cope with just because you fell in love with the house.
  10. The home inspection is essential: This can help you identify any potential problems form a crack in the foundation to a leak in a faucet. You can then request that the seller fix them, reduce your offer to buy based on the cost it will involve to fix them, or walk away if the problems are beyond the scope of what you can deal with.

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