are you considering buying your first home i'm going to take you through an eight-step process to successfully buy your first house i'm shaheeda hill getting you over the hill to home ownership and helping you confidently buy your first home step number one is meet with a real estate agent and i want to recommend a local realtor so somebody that serves the community that you're most likely interested in moving to a local realtor will know that market really really well and they'll also be able to recommend lenders and other vendors that you're going to need along the way so i want you to meet with a real estate agent first and have a consultation i have a video about how to hire and fire if necessary your realtor and i'll recommend that you watch that throughout your process number two get organized one of the things you're going to have to do is apply for a mortgage and before you do that you need to gather up a lot of the documents that a mortgage lender is going to require of you so things like tax returns for the last two years your w2 forms for the last two years your check stubs typically 30 to 60 days and then your bank statements for at least 60 days sometimes 30. it all depends on the lender but start gathering all of those things up so you know how to locate them they'll want them electronically so you want to get those off of your bank's websites from your hr department you want to start gathering those up and maybe create a folder on your computer or on your phone however you're going to gather them up so you can access them very easily also during this time i want you to see if you qualify for any down payment assistance programs because you don't want to get far into your home search after you've made an offer and then you realize well maybe i qualify for some type of down payment assistance i have a whole down payment assistance playlist so if you're interested in knowing if you qualify for anything you may want to check that out number three is when you actually apply for your mortgage and i recommend very strongly you apply with at least three lenders because that will give you a good idea of what you qualify for it'll give you a good idea of the mortgage rates you're being offered and the good news is the credit monitor the credit reporting system or your credit score allows you to shop around for your mortgage so they don't you know keep on reducing your credit score based on these hard credit pulls as long as you as long as you apply within a short time period so if you apply within a 30 day period i even recommend depending on what credit model do it within a two week period so you're not negatively impacted multiple times but apply with three lenders these are the lenders i recommend that you apply to one that your realtor recommends your your current bank or credit union a mortgage broker mortgage brokers go out and shop around different lenders to try to find you the best you know the best deal for your situation and then an online bank that'll give you a good idea of what you qualify for you're not going to make a decision on lender until you get close to becoming under contract or right when you become under contract but you will have those lenders that you can go back to when you are ready but what you're looking to get from the lender is a pre-approval you're looking to get a pre-approval and it's going to be for a certain amount based on what you your credit based on your income all of those documents you gathered up they're going to give you a pre-approval so let's say for example they give you a pre-approval for 500 000 i'm going to recommend that you in your budget at least pull back at least 10 percent that is the maximum that you can qualify for but you don't want to always go up to your maximum maybe you go to 450 instead of 500 000. that gives you a little bit of wiggle room because all lenders they're basing their pre-approval off of your gross pay and not your net and you know what you actually bring home each month you know your actual bills for example when i my husband and i um qualify for our home we had two children in daycare and we were paying about fourteen hundred dollars a month for them to be in daycare and elinda's not aware of that that's something they don't pull up on your credit report but we knew that we didn't need to go up to our maximum amount because we still have to get through those daycare years so be really really conservative on what you can afford not just going by what you're pre-approved for also there are four primary mortgage types a conventional loan an fha loan a usda loan and a va loan conventional and fha are most popular however usda it allows you to buy a house in a in a rural area for a hundred percent financing and then va loans are for veterans i have a full playlist about mortgages so you might want to check that out to know which one is going to be best for you you may want to start with this one fha versus conventional number four now is the fun part you get to start shopping for your house i recommend that you find the best neighborhood for your budget and you also need to really communicate with your real estate agent as to what type of market that you're in because when you're in a seller's market you're going to have a different strategy than if you're in a buyer's market or a balanced market and i have some questions that you should be asking your real estate agent so watch that video when you get to that point in your process all right we have four more steps if this is your first time here please like and subscribe to my channel for new videos every week all right number five make an offer so you're gonna find you're shopping for the house you're going to make an offer on that house when you're making an offer you are going to you know submit your contract over to the seller or the listing agent they're either going to accept your offer they're going to counter your offer or they're going to ignore it all together they have that choice as well but your real estate agent will help you through that process to get your offer accepted now after your offer is accepted that's called a binding contract i'm gonna make this step six you have a binding contract you have where the seller has signed the offer and you have signed it now it's actual not actually an offer anymore it's a binding contract binding on both parties the seller and you now that you have a binding contract you can go into escrow this is step seven this escrow period or being under contract there are a few things that are going to happen in most states depending on how you your agent wrote your contract there's a due diligence period this due diligence period allows time for you to do your inspections on this home and just look around the neighborhood research the schools there's a lot of things you can do during your due diligence so during this time you have basically an out of your contract you can get out of your contract during this time but it really is important as to how your agent worded your contract as to how long you have for your due diligence period and this will vary again depending on what kind of market you are in if it's a more competitive market you're going to probably have a shorter due diligence if it is a buyer's market you may have a much longer due diligence period so be mindful because those dates are going to be very important so you get your inspections done you either can at that point walk away from the the you terminate the deal depending on what's in your contract or you can try to work with the seller to negotiate some of those repairs that may need to happen during that due diligence period now if you get past the due diligence period you'll have two more important things going on one is an appraisal to make sure that that house is worth whatever you're going to borrow for that house so let's go back to our five hundred thousand dollar example it needs to appraise for five hundred thousand dollars because that house is collateral for your loan so at any point during this process during once you buy the house you can no longer pay and they have to foreclose the bank has to foreclose they're going to take that asset back so they need to make sure that that house that they're loaning you the money for is actually worth what you're paying for it so they'll send out an independent party a independent appraiser to make sure and they'll have a copy of that contract to make sure that that house is worth 500 000 i've done a full video on appraisal i don't want you to watch it now but i think when you get closer unless you're really interested when you get closer to the process i want you to watch that video to know how that appraisal process is likely to go and also during this period you're in underwriting with your lender so you got a pre-approval that was in step three you had a pre-approval for 500 000 for example now the underwriter the lender sending your your information the contract everything to underwriting to make sure you still qualify because when you got the pre-approval they didn't actually call your job during that time they probably didn't do a deep dive into your financials now that's what they do in underwriting now that they have a price now that they have an amount that they're going to lend you the contract price now the underwriter needs to see can this applicant really qualify for this loan so now instead of just you know looking at the pay stubs and looking at the bank statements they're actually going to look at it very carefully and see if you have what deposits are coming in what deposits are coming out they're going to look at your credit more closely they may pull your credit again if it's been a while since they pulled it last they're probably going to call your job to make sure you still work there there are so many things they're going to do during this time to make sure that you are going to be approved for this home i have a video on some of the things that can cause you to be denied after you go under contract that's a video you want to watch as well now if once you the appraisal comes through you get through underwriting and go from pre-approved to fully approved they call that clear to close the underwriter will give you the clear to close and then step eight you close on your house generally closings take place either at a closing attorney's office or they can take place at a title company depending on your state some states require attorneys some states you can close with the title company so you're going to go to either one and basically the closing is nothing more than you signing the documents accepting the loan so you're accepting the loan you're acknowledging what happens if you don't make payments you're acknowledging what your payment is going to be what your interest rate is going to be you're signing a lot of paperwork also that's when the the title is transferred from the seller of the property to you and that's what the closing attorney or the underwriter sorry the closing attorney or the title company is facilitating they're facilitating the transfer of ownership between the seller and yourself so there's nothing major that should come up at closing right so as long as everything's been done according like during that escrow period you worked out any issues that you might have had with the property during that time closing generally should be really really smooth i have a closing video that i did with an attorney if you want to watch more of that i hope this helps you i also have a a great bonus for you since you've made it this far i have a full checklist as what you need to do first in the home buying process and you can download it below thank you so much for watching please like and subscribe to my channel and congratulations in advance in purchasing your first home