The first step to buying a house is to secure your financing.  There is no sense looking at houses when 1) you don't know if you can get a loan, 2) you don't know how much you can qualify for, and 3) when it comes time to make an offer, a loan pre-qualification letter makes your offer stand out.  Getting pre-qualified is easy.  You simply contact a reputable mortgage lender and they will take your basic information and run a credit check.  Your credit score dictates a lot including whether you can get a loan, which loan programs you qualify for, and what interest rate you can get.  The pre-qualification process will tell you your house price range.  So, if you qualify for a $100,000 loan, there's no sense in looking at $150,000 houses.

Once you know your housing budget you can start shopping neighborhoods and then shop individual homes.  You want to determine what area you want to live in. Important factors include proximity to your job, schools, and access to preferred amenities such as a church, golf course, shopping mall, and freeway access.  After you narrow it down to a few subdivisions or specific areas you can start looking at specific houses. We can narrow down the search to only houses with the features that you prefer such as number of bedrooms and baths, garage, basement, square feet, 1 story or 2, etc.

We can write up a purchase offer on the house you target, taking into account the other comparable houses in the neighborhood, your loan requirements and down payment.  We will help you to negotiate the best price possible and will make sure that you don't over pay.  We have lots of experience negotiating house sales.  Contingencies will be defined to cover the house inspection, clean title, a smooth closing, etc.

There is a time period between acceptance of a purchase agreement and the final closing.  During this time period the house is usually inspected and an appraisal is performed in addition to other things.  An inspection may reveal issues that must be addressed prior to closing or may even cause the purchase to fail.  You can be sure that things will go smoothly with our help.

The closing is where it all comes together.  You and the seller sign all of the required documents with you receiving a deed, the bank receiving a note and mortgage, and the seller receiving his proceeds.  Closings are nearly always happy affairs.  Usually everyone gets what they want.  You will sign a note which is an IOU to the bank stating the amount of the loan, the repayment terms, the interest rate, etc.  In addition you will typically sign a mortgage.  The mortgage is your pledge of the house as collateral for the loan meaning that if the loan is not paid as agreed, the bank has the right to foreclose on the house.  In exchange you will receive a deed and you become owner of the house.