House hunting success can be difficult to achieve if you don’t know what you’re on the hunt for. There are certain things you need to figure out before you start your search. Here are five of the top things you want to think about before you start hunting for a new house in Atlanta.
What are your Reasons for Buying a New Home?
Is this your first time or do you want to upgrade/downgrade your home? Are you looking to go from a condo to a single-family home or from a small home to a larger home?
Understanding your reasons for buying a new home will help lead you to success. When you make a home buying decision, you want to know why you’re making the decision. Start here and figure out the reasons for house hunting first.
What’s Your Budget?
Answering this question isn’t as easy as just looking at what you pay in rent and assuming you can afford that much for a home. You need to get a pre-approval for a mortgage and let a lender tell you want you can really afford.
Once you’ve been pre-approved, you will also want to look over your own budget and make sure you’re comfortable with the payment you will be taking on. Keep in mind; you will also need to pay for home insurance, taxes, private mortgage insurance, a down payment and other costs when buying a new home.
What’s on your Need/Want List?
Whenever you start shopping for a new home, you should create a list of needs and a list of wants. The needs are non-negotiables and a bit like the filters you might use with an online home search. The wants are extras that you would love to have, but could live without, if the home is right in all the other ways.
For example, you may need three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a large kitchen. However, you may want a swimming pool, a three car garage and a large fenced-in back yard. The things you need should be included in any home you look at, while the things you want are a bonus.
Where do You want to Live?
You could easily say you want to live in Atlanta, but that’s a big area with a number of neighborhoods throughout. Do you want to live in an area with great school? Do you prefer to be close to where you work? What type of neighborhood do you prefer?
Choosing the location will help narrow your home search down even further. Once you have found the location you love, house hunting becomes much easier and you have a better chance at success.
Have you Hired a Real Estate Agent?
If you want to struggle with your home search, use all the online tools available and try to do it all on your own. However, if you want to achieve success and have someone ready to give you sound advice during the process hire a real estate agent.
You cannot just hire anybody to be your real estate agent, however. They need to be someone you feel comfortable working with and someone that specializes in the type of home and/or the area you will be searching within. Make sure you ask plenty of questions before you hire your real estate agent.
If you want to find success with house hunting in Atlanta, make sure to consider all five of these house hunting keys to success.