5 Steps to Help You Purchase Your Forever Dream Home

Charleston Real Estate Podcast with Jeff Cook

Are you ready to buy a home but don’t know exactly where to start? We can help. Here are the top five steps you need to know in order to buy your forever dream home: 1. Check your credit score. It’s not so much that you need to have a score over 650 in order to get approved. If you have a credit score closer to 650 or 700, you can get a better interest rate than you would with a 600 score. Knowing your credit score can help you determine exactly what your down payment situation looks like. 2. Don’t open new lines of credit. You don’t want to let anyone else pull your credit while you’re going through this process. We worked with a family once that got pre-approved, had an amazing home search, and found the perfect house. Then they went out and bought new furniture and a new car on credit. Opening those new lines of credit dropped their credit score significantly, which meant they couldn’t get financing on the house. They had a truck full of new furniture and no home to put it in. Luckily, we were able to work our magic and get it done. I’m just telling you that you don’t want to open new lines of credit or have other people pull your credit score. Don’t make any large purchases while you go through the process because it could count against your debt-to-income ratio. 3. Find a really good mortgage lender. Don’t worry, we have one for you: Tabor Mortgage Group. You can call them at 843-408-0856 or Google them. You can find everything you want to know about them online. We would be happy to pair you up with someone over there to help you with step four. 4. Get pre-approved before you start your home search. Getting pre-approved will help you find out exactly how much the bank will lend you based on your specific financial information. They will look at your income, expenses, and credit score. They can help you figure out how much of a down payment you’ll need, what your monthly mortgage payment will be, and what kind of interest rate you will have. Getting pre-approved ahead of time is important so that you don’t waste your times looking at homes above or below your price range. 5. Start your home search with us. We will help you find your forever dream home. We have a free program where we will walk you through each of the steps of finding your perfect home. We will make sure that the title is clear and that the home is everything you thought and hoped it would be. If you are ready to start your home search or have any other real estate questions, just give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you! “Don’t make large purchases during the home buying process.”