So you are thinking of buying a home for the first time? In this video, we give you 7 tips for buying a home for the first time so you don’t get caught off guard.

If you’re thinking about buying a home, especially for the first time, then you’re gonna want to watch this video because we’re going to discuss the seven most critical steps you need to think about before buying your next home. And if you stick around till the end, I’ll share with you the most important tip of all.

So as I mentioned, In this video, we are talking about the seven critical steps that you need to consider before buying a home, especially if this is your first home. And we’re going to run through this with you so that you can be a little bit better prepared. And so this doesn’t just apply to moving to Texas or to Dallas, Texas where Jimmy and I are located. But if you’re moving anywhere, this these steps apply across anywhere in the United States, bro practically anywhere in the world, even you could throw these in there. But just something that you want to definitely keep in mind. The first thing you definitely want to keep in mind when you’re buying a home is repairs and maintenance. This is something that if you’ve been renting before, or living with your parents or something living with someone else, then this is something that you probably haven’t had to worry about. And when you own your own home, things are going to come up repairs and maintenance are going to come up. So what you want to do is you definitely want to have a savings or an emergency fund in place, we always recommend at least $1,000.

They say the average expense around the home when something goes wrong is around three to $500. So if you have at least $1,000 in an emergency fund, you should be able to weather most storms that come up also when you’re purchasing a new home. And this is something that your agent will help you with as far as purchasing a possible Home Warranty along with that home. And so that way that can cover you in the first year or two. And you even will have the option to extend that warranty likely even past a year or two. So that way, if something comes up, when you first buy that home, maybe it was missed during the inspection or, you know, the inspection said it was fine. But you know how things always work? Whenever after you buy something, right?

It’s seems like that’s whenever it breaks. Or as soon as your warranty expires, that’s when something happens. But you want to have a home warranty in place when you purchase your home. So that way that will also help reduce some of the cost or unexpected expenses that you may encounter your first year to have homeownership. Because if and if you don’t have a savings or emergency fund in place right there, that Home Warranty could really come in handy. But still, you’d want to have some money off to the side, just in case to really, you know, make sure that you don’t put yourself in a hole. And we don’t want you to have to go into debt or put something on a credit card just for a simple home maintenance or repair. So that’s just something to keep in mind is that you are going to be responsible for the maintenance and repairs on your home. It’s not that you don’t have a landlord handy unless your your parents are good friends are, you know, Handy men or women, then, but still, you want to be a responsible adult and have some funds in place because you don’t want to bug your family and friends to come come fix your house unless you make it a party and provide some brewskis or something like that, then maybe you might be able to bribe them. But other than that, you definitely want to consider repairs and maintenance. Alright, so number two that you want to consider when you’re buying a home is property taxes. This is something that can be expensive, especially inside a Dallas depending on the school districts you’re a part of that can be a major expense and property taxes in Dallas or in Texas as a whole are a lot more expensive, because we don’t have state income tax here that they kind of make that up with the property taxes.

And you would be surprised of what that can amount to in certain areas. So make sure that that is factored into what you’re doing and your payment. Now most likely, if you’re getting a mortgage, then those taxes are going to be escrowed, which means they’re going to be lumped in with your payment. So that should help you on your budget. So you should know exactly you should get a good faith estimate before you go to buy a home from a lender. That way you have a good understanding of what your payment is going to be and they’ll be able to look up the taxes in that area, especially that home that you’re thinking about purchasing So there shouldn’t be any big surprises there, you’re likely going to, it’s going to fall within that good faith estimate. Taxes are easy to predict, but predict. But here’s the thing, here’s a key factor that you want to keep in mind. Like, when I moved into a new or not a newer house, I moved into a new house for me about a year and a half ago. And the I paid about 100,000 more than what was on the appraisal. So the appraisal, the current appraisal was 400,000, less than what I paid for it. Well, I tell you what, that the county appraisal district, at least here in Dallas, they are on top of things, and they they but the problem is, is that not only did they probably see the purchase price that I that I bought at which was 100,000 over the last appraisal which the home was remodeled and fixed up. As you can see, I’m in my home office, it was it’s an older historic home, but it was repaired. So before that last appraisal that was 100,000, less was likely before it was remodeled, which is understandable. But they actually raised my taxes $200,000, which means they raised the value on my home by $200,000, two months after I moved in. So what I was able to do, and this is something you can do is I went through a company, and I don’t receive any compensation for this or anything. But it was a Texas tax protest. So that’s a, you can pay a flat fee. I think mine was $250, which is well worth it. And they will dispute your taxes for you and actually get everything filed. And so I was actually able to reduce my taxes back down to my purchase price, at least which I thought was fair. And that was $100,000 less than what they were assessing the value on my home now I believe my home is is valued at the price they put on it. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I want to pay the taxes on that. So that company, that law firm was able to reduce me down to the purchase price of my home, which I think is fair. And usually they can lock that in for the next three years. So that should give you a good idea about where your payment should stay pretty steady for the next three years at least. But you can always dispute your tax appraisals. So keep that in mind when you’re buying a home. All right. Number three is you want to do research, you want to research the areas. Basically, you want to watch all of our videos, if you haven’t watched all of our videos, you need to watch every single one of them. I’m just kidding. Well, you can if you want.

But we have a lot of vlogs and tours of different neighborhoods and other helpful tips. By the way, you know, normally we’re showing you neighborhoods and things to do around Dallas, this is one of the first videos we’re doing to actually kind of explain tips about buying a home. So let me know in the comments below if you’re finding this helpful, or if you want to see more videos like this, that are just kind of general in buying or selling a home as it relates to your situation. But otherwise, you know, we try to just stick to educating you on Dallas in the surrounding areas. So you can get a good idea and a visual of what’s going on. But check out our blog tours, it’ll give you a great visual of different areas around Dallas and in Dallas that you can take advantage of as far as getting a good idea before you come here, and might save you some time. Because you might see something on a video you don’t like, you might see something on the video that you do like so just keep in mind. Research is key.

When you’re buying a new home, especially the area, the school districts, the taxes, all of those factors come into play whenever you’re looking to buy a new home. Alright, number four is clean up your credit. All right. And so if you’ve got good credit, then probably nothing to worry about. But if you’re unsure or you think there could be an issue with your credit, then there might be. So what we recommend is that you speak to a lender, preferably one of our partners, you don’t have to there’s no obligation for that. But we work with some of the best lenders in the business, and especially for Texas. So if you’re coming from out of state, you may only have relationships with an out of state lender, or one that’s in your state and they may not be qualified to talk about Texas, so you want to get a good, or the best Texas lender that you can find we definitely know them. But we always recommend doing that before you really start the process because we’re gonna be able to take a look at your credit and tell you exactly what’s needed to be done. I was working with my lender the other day with the client. And really, she had borderline good credit, she just needed to actually open an account, most people think they need to close an account. And normally when you’re buying a home, you don’t want to do anything as far as in regards to your credit. You don’t want to open a new accounts or you don’t want to close accounts, but the lender saw that she actually needed an additional account or to open to kind of help establish a little bit more credit and she thought it was safe to do that. And so that’s what she advised the client to do. But you want to make sure that you’re you know on a targeted pace as far as you know. What what it is exactly you do if you try to guess. And then you could do things that are unnecessary or could actually hurt you in the home buying process.

So always consult with the lender, before we start the process, because also, you may have in your mind that you want a four or $500,000 house, but maybe you’re just qualified for 350. That’s a, that’s, you know, we don’t want anybody to be disappointed if we start looking for a $400,000 home. And you can only afford 350, we figured that out after the fact. So we want to know before beforehand, what you qualify for, and what’s the best way to make sure that you can get approved for that loan whenever it’s time to go to closing. All right, number five. Number five, as far as one of the tips for buying your first home is to save for a down payment. Now, hopefully, you’ve already been doing this. And you know, down payments can range anywhere from zero to 20. Well, they can range anywhere from zero to 100, you could put 100% as a down payment. But most people don’t have the budget for that. But you can, the typical range is zero to 20%, depending on where you’re at. There are loan programs where you can do as low as three and a half or even 0% down. But just in case it doesn’t hurt to have any, you know, somewhere anywhere between zero to 20%, I would say anywhere from three and a half to 20% is really the safe factor that you would want to consider for having a downpayment saved, there are some zero down programs, but you do have to qualify or May, you know need to be a veteran for that, then that’s something we could definitely keep in mind. But I would say at a minimum have at least three and a half percent saved, and the more the better. And we’re going to evaluate, if putting more down is even going to be beneficial. Sometimes just putting the minimal amount down with interest rates as low as they are putting an extra five or $10,000 down

doesn’t really save you a lot on the mortgage. So you might as well keep that cash possibly just depends, again, we got to look at the situation and see what it is. But I’d rather you keep five or $10,000, then putting it down. And, and not making that big of a dent in your mortgage payment, especially the way as low as interest rates are at this time. So again, just keep in mind at least three and a half percent. have that in your back pocket just in case. All right, number six, is you want to get pre qualified. So this goes back to checking with that lender, checking on your credit, seeing where you’re at. But let’s go ahead and get you pre approved, so that you know exactly what amount and what price range we can look at this will save you a lot of heartache and save us a lot of time as far as not searching in the wrong neighborhoods or properties or price points. And it just really saves us both a lot of time. And again, we don’t want you to get discouraged if we find something that happens to be out of your price range. And we don’t know that based because we haven’t done a pre approval. So you know, we want to get you pre approved. And that also helps in negotiating when we are you know making an offer on a home especially in this market speed is your friend in this market right now. Most homes are selling at asking or just above asking they’re getting multiple offers, inventory is low. So having all your ducks in a row, as far as a pre approval letter, you know, a strong down payment, you know, things along those lines are going to help us negotiate a lot better, it’s going to look a lot more appealing. Because if you don’t have a pre approval letter, we won’t even submit an offer, really, we need that to make an offer. And if we find something, and then you have to go back to the lender, and we have to get a pre approval and that takes, even if it’s an hour or two hours or a day, we could lose that property possibly. So just keep that in mind. Let’s do that upfront. Again, we’ve worked with some of the best lenders in the business here in Texas, so we can get that all squared away for you. All right. And number seven, as I mentioned in the beginning, you stick around for the best tip of all, when buying a new home or possibly even your first home. And that is to call us. I mean, you definitely want to give us a call myself or Jimmy our numbers in the description below. You know, we’re gonna walk you through all of the steps that you need. And you know, take control of the situation, we really want to make this as seamless as possible, and really help you really find exactly what you’re looking for. But we can’t do that unless you give us a call. So if you’re thinking about moving to the area, or you are moving to the area, but just not sure about some of the decisions you need to make then we know we’d be happy to jump on a zoom call. That’s our whole goal is that not phone or text as far as I mean, we can but we prefer zoom call because we kind of want to meet you in person. And so that way we can get to know you a little bit better exactly what you’re looking for, and get all that everything else narrowed down and square So that way we can help you find the home of your dreams in the neighborhood that you want. And that just makes it all a much better process. So getting on a zoom call with us is definitely a key aspect. And really the most important because if you do that, first it will take care of the first six, no problem, we will walk you down that path. So if you’re taking notes, and this sounds a little overwhelming, just skip the step, step number seven and give us a call and get on a zoom and we’ll take care of the rest of it for you. And again, please comment below if you found this helpful. If you’d like some information like this other than just our neighborhood tours, then then let us know if this was beneficial for you. And so also please subscribe and then if you’re moving in nine days or 90 days doesn’t matter, give us a call, shoot us text or send us an email and we’d be happy to help you make a smooth move to Dallas. And with that being said, we look forward to seeing you around town.

If you’re considering moving to Dallas Texas, or anywhere else in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, be sure to give us a call, shoot us a text, send us an email, or schedule a Zoom call. We’d love to help you make a smooth move to Dallas Texas!

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