One of the most common mistakes mn first time home buyers make is waiting too long to begin the mortgage pre-approval process. Because new homebuyers are somewhat timid and cautious, they usually wait too long to begin learning about what they need for financing and what they could qualify for as far as first time home buyer programs and grants through the state of Minnesota and the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
A lot of newbies may wait until the month before their lease is up to finally get approved and really start looking at homes, which is a huge stress for them, their real estate agent, and their loan officer.
A good rule of thumb is to think ahead 6 months.
By starting the loan pre-approval process 6 months before you plan to move, you’re making sure that you won’t find any surprises on your credit report, and that you know exactly what type of houses you’ll be able to afford when you’re ready to search a little more intensely.
Let’s go over what happens in the home buying process:
- Loan Pre-approval
- Meeting with real estate agent
- Searching for homes through the MLS online
- Setting up property showings with agent
- Making an offer
- Getting an accepted offer (sometimes not the first one you’ve made)
- Having a home inspection
- Processing your loan with your mortgage lender
- Having title work completed for the closing
- Packing your stuff in preparation for moving
- Doing your final walkthrough
- Closing and signing of paperwork
- Moving in
As you can guess, there are many smaller steps taken in between here, but you get the general sense that plenty has to come together in order to actually purhcase your home and get to finally move in.
In fact, from the time you get an accepted offer until the day closing happens, you may have waited almost 2 months. In addition to that 2 months, searching for and finding the right property can easily take 1 to 2 months as well. So that’s already 4 months of time you have to account for in your home searching process.
Have other first time buyers in mn completed the process in less time? Absolutely. Have others taken more than 6 months? Without a doubt.
The best piece of advice you can take in the home buying process comes from the good ‘ol Boy Scouts: “BE PREPARED”
If you’d like to take a look at your credit score and see what kinds of special programs you qualify for, send me an email.
