Buying real estate is one of the biggest things you’re ever going to do in your life. Unless you’re a real estate agent who buys and sells houses on the regular, you’re probably going to get intimidated by the thought of having to buy a house or an apartment all on your own. After all, buying property worth several hundred thousand dollars can be daunting at the best of times, let alone when you’re unprepared. To help you find the right property we’ve decided to compile the most important factors you should look at before you even consider making the purchase.
- Stability
Before you even consider buying a house, you have to consider if you can afford it. A lot of times you can get carried away by a promotion or a recent positive life event, but you shouldn’t rush into buying real estate purely because you feel like it. Consider all of the possibilities? If your business seems to be doing good at the moment, will that upward trend continue or grind to a halt? How likely are the chances of getting promoted in your new work place? Ask yourself these very basic questions to find out if you’ve got decent income stability. Think about the future, at least a year from now. If you can honestly see yourself doing well, then that’s a great start.
- Credit Score
We’ve said it time and time again, but credit score determines a lot of things, interest rate being one of them. Although good credit isn’t always necessary, it’s certainly desirable as it’ll directly affect your mortgage’s interest rate. Over the span of your mortgage, which will most likely be several years or even decades, it can add up to a difference of several thousand dollars. No one is rich enough to not care about money when it gets into the thousands of dollars range.
- Situation and goals
Are you currently single or married? Are you perhaps expecting kids? Factor in everything when buying a home, not just affordability. Work out what you’re going to be using the estate for as well. Are you going to live in it, rent it, or perhaps even fix it up and sell it? You have to custom-tailor the shopping experience to fit your situation, and yours alone.
- Start Searching
Once you’ve looked at all of the above-mentioned factors, you can start searching the real estate market. Here’s where things get even trickier however. The real estate market is littered with thousands of listings, and you can be certain 99 percent of them won’t fit your criteria. Instead of calling every single listing however, it’s easier to just use PeopleFinders and perform an address lookup. Similar to online background checks, you’ll get info about the property and the area so you have a clearer picture of what you’re getting yourself into.
Conclusion
Remember to think it through before you make any rushed decision. The last thing you want is an estate which will turn into a financial nightmare. Think logically and plan ahead.
