Bob Brauer

 For Buyers:

Buying a home is the single most important investment a person can make. The more prepared a person is at the beginning of the process, the fewer mistakes, the less confusing, and the less stressful the whole process will be.

Buying a home usually starts on the internet. But before you start house hunting, pull a credit report and make sure your credit is where it should be. Fix the problems and make sure everything is correct.

When a lender is trying to determine a person's ability to qualify for a loan or the amount of a loan, a lender will look at a person's debt to income ratio. This is the percentage of your gross monthly income compared to your monthly debt. This includes any loans, credit cards, and car payments. A general rule to go by on what a person can afford is the house can cost 2½ times what the income is.

Once your credit is shored up, get pre-approved from a lender or broker. Avoid making big purchases or moving money around from the time you start looking for a home until after closing on the home. It’s best to avoid changing jobs before closing as well.

When buying a home, it's just as important to have representation on the buying side as it is the selling side. A realtor can provide a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA). This will help determine the offer price. Besides looking at comparable home sales, other factors including property condition, home improvements, market conditions, and how motivated the seller is.

Once you have found your home and an offer has been made and accepted, get a qualified professional home inspector. His job is to point out repairs that need to be made now and to possibly find potential problems down the road that could lead to expensive repairs.

The home buyer by selecting the right real estate agent can build a team of professionals that will follow a step by step process that will lead to success all the way to the closing table.