You’re thinking of buying a house. How do you know if you’re ready to write an offer?
First, you need to know your overall buying power. So, how much house can you afford? You need to actually talk to a lender at today’s rates to really get a good idea of what that number might look like.
And then you want to take the next step with that lender and actually get a pre-approval letter. It could be a pre-approval or it could be a full underwritten approval. Whether or not you need the full approval or not really depends on what type of job you have. If you have a 1099, you probably want to go through the full approval process just to make sure that the bank is comfortable with all the sources of income and where they come from. But if you have a W-2 and you’ve been in your job for a long time, you might be okay with just a pre-approval because the lender can get that loan done pretty quickly.
And then the third thing that you really want to do is make sure you’re really clear on where you want to live. This will help prevent any buyer’s remorse later if you go under contract and decide in the middle of the night that you don’t actually like the location that you picked. So, while the inventory is low and we’re here in our winter months, this is a really good time to research a lot of the different neighborhoods. Go out, try out restaurants, coffee shops, do some shopping there, and really get a feel for the different locations.
Once you’re really sure on what your must-have location is, as well as what your buying power is, you’re ready to start shopping! And if the right house comes up, you can make an offer.