Homebuying

5 Questions You’ll Want To Ask If You’re Thinking About Buying a Home

There’s a long journey between your first time meeting your realtor and the time when keys shift from the past owner’s hands to your own. The questions you decide to ask along the way are ones that will help guarantee that your first time buying a home is a fond time to look back on. 

We know that while you’re in it, it can be dreadful to even imagine a time when you’ll appreciate the questions you asked and the long answers you received, but we promise, there is a time when this will be true. We can already hear your future self thanking you for it.

We pulled together some of the top questions you should make sure to ask to maximize the homebuying experience and minimize the stress. 

How do I start finding a realtor? 

We know this may feel like too basic a question to even include on the list, but it’s the one question that will help you set the stage for a successful home buying process as a whole. You want to make sure you’re finding someone who understands the town just as well as they know the homes found in the specific neighborhoods. You also want to make sure it’s someone whose chemistry is aligned with yours — tapping into our Agent Network is a good place to start. We’ve vetted all agents to be experts in their areas and with a history of putting their clients first. You want someone who will be your advocate throughout this whole journey, don’t settle for less than that. 

Is there a better time of the year to buy a home? 

Turns out our realtor experts have strong opinions on whether there’s a better season or not.  Holly Giordano, our Suburbit realtor expert explained, “Usually by June and definitely into July and August houses are generally very negotiable at that point because going into the summer people start to take reductions.” But don’t fret if you don’t find your golden egg in the heart of the summer or the end of fall, Giordano notes that it’s less about the perfect season and more about the timing being right for you and your family. 

Is being self-employed going to make it harder for me to buy a home? 

You’ll want to ask your realtor this question at the beginning of your home buying process and if you know that you’re going to be buying a home in the next two to three years, make this a conversation you start with your accountant or finance person. You’ll want the lead time because while self-employment doesn’t stop you from being able to buy a home, it does require more documents and potentially more lead time. 

How do I keep perspective in check during the homebuying process? 

On Suburbit we emphasize the importance of having a self-care routine while you navigate the real estate world. Take some time before you start diving into the nitty gritty of the homebuying process to commit these rules on paper and then use them to help guide a weekly check-in with yourself. Putting them down on paper will help keep yourself accountable for taking care of more than just the documents that need to get to your agent, it’ll ensure that you prioritize journaling or some weekend yoga that will help bring you back to why you started looking for a new home in the first place. 

How much should I have saved before I buy a house? 

We tapped our realtor experts for this and their insights remind us that the real estate market is constantly evolving to meet the needs of the people who are buying from it. So while the benchmark number is to have at least 15-20% ready to invest into your new home, there are special conditions where 5% may actually work. Making sure to ask your own realtor about what the average down payment is in the neighborhoods you’re looking at will ensure you walk in with all the necessary information possible during your own negotiations.