Get Your Plan Together for 2015!

We are all more connected than ever, which makes researching a new home easy and convenient. The dreaming phase — which has no definitive start time or length — means thinking about what you want in a home, exploring neighborhoods and casting the widest net possible.

This phase includes looking at photos of homes online, comparing and contrasting listings or prices per square foot and understanding the price differential between two school districts.

Dreaming happens on your terms and your timing. It doesn’t require help from a real estate agent or mortgage professional. It’s a good time for you to play around with the market, start to get the real estate bug and develop a feel for what could be a reality in the future. Don’t rush, and don’t feel pressured.

Search and Discovery Mode

When you feel ready to make a reality of the dreaming phase, it’s time to move the process along. Search and discovery allows you to get the facts, build your team and begin to amass a strong approach to pushing ahead. Connect with a local real estate agent and a mortgage lender to get started.

Typically, buyers meet with a real estate agent first, who then refers them to a good local mortgage professional. Connecting with an agent means asking lots of questions about how the market works, school districts and the home buying process in general.

In the dreaming phase, you don’t know what you don’t know. But during search and discovery, you’ll start gathering solid information. A mortgage professional will run some numbers and do a full review of your finances, including pulling your credit. They will marry that data with available loans in the market and teach you about the different loan options.

Full Steam Ahead

After weeks or months (or sometimes even years) of dreaming, searching and discovering, you will know the market inside and out. You will have seen enough homes to know what you like and don’t like, and you’ll have prioritized your criteria based on what you’ve learned. You’ll have seen many homes come on the market, go pending and close, which will help you understand list price vs. sale price, and why some homes sell faster than others.

When you are full steam ahead, you’ll be online 24/7 and being a home buyer becomes a part-time job. You’ll be in constant contact with your agent, who may be texting or emailing you listings throughout the day.

When a home that matches your criteria comes on the market, get out and see the home in person. Don’t wait for an open house — go view the home ASAP with your agent.

At this stage, you’ll be ready to make offers, and you may miss out on one or two homes before getting one. Or you may move forward on a home, only to find out there are inspection issues. You might even experience a little buyer’s remorse.