Buying a home in Nanaimo? How To Start The Home Buying Process

Buying a home in Nanaimo? How To Start The Home Buying Process

During a recent get-together with some of my fellow Nanaimo Realtors we had a pretty lively conversation about the mistakes that buyers often make when they begin looking for a house to buy.

There’s no doubt that buying a home – be it your first home or your third – is a very exciting experience, especially right now when there are some good deals on the market.

Often times people will put the cart before the horse, to use a cliché, and jump into the house hunting process with both feet first and they forget about what I like to call the ‘pre-planning house hunting’ steps that will make them a solid, qualified buyer in the eyes of the seller.

Here are a few things that as a buyer you should consider doing to prepare yourself for the home buying process in Nanaimo:

1.  Select a Nanaimo Realtor to represent you in your home buying process.  When you have professional representation you’ll appear as a credible buyer in the eyes of the seller and the seller’s real estate agent.

2.  Talk to a lender to understand your financing options, including your total closing costs and your monthly mortgage payments.

3.  After you have your financing arranged, do some initial house hunting over the Internet, to get an idea of what you can comfortably afford to buy.

4.  Attend a few open houses and visit some of the houses you saw on the Internet with your Realtor.  Often times you’ll find that a home looks great on the web, but leaves a little to be desired when seen in ‘real life’.

5.  After you’ve looked at a few homes in person, but together a home improvement budget to cover items such as appliance updating, window coverings, landscaping and repainting. 

Then, combine these home improvement expenses to your financing costs, to make sure that you’re still within your financial comfort range. 

There’s nothing worse than moving into a new home only to be caught off guard and find that there’s no money left over for decorating!