Top 3 Buyer Blunders
If home buyers make an innocent mistake, they could very well be stuck with the consequences. Worse yet, their deal might not even close. Not every mistake in a real estate transaction can be reversed, let alone fixed, before closing if there are home buying mistakes. As such, here are the three major home buying mistakes you can easily avoid:
1. Altering Financial Situation Before Closing
Perhaps you qualify when you first buy your home because you have no car payment or revolving debt. If you can, keep it this way. Any change in your financial situation, such as financing a new car a week before closing, can change the ratios and mean you no longer qualify. This can result in panicked phone calls to family members, begging to borrow money, lest you risk losing the house. Even the smallest alterations in your credit ratios could cause an underwriter deny your loan and throw it out. In addition, if your loan contingency has expired or been removed, your earnest money deposit could be forfeit on top of losing the house.
2. Refusing to Confide in a Trusted Advisor
This could be your real estate agent or real estate lawyer. People withhold information from their advisers for any number of reasons, such as:
- They think they have all the answers
- Lack confidence in their adviser
- Fear of how they will be perceived
- They don’t feel it is important
- Experienced real estate professionals handle many so many transactions and personality mixes, there’s very little they haven’t heard before. It’s their job to represent your best interests and their highest responsibility to do so. If they don’t know what you’re doing behind behind their backs, they can’t really help you. Also, with their experience, they’re likely to come up with better ideas.
They’re professionals. Let them do their job, which is helping you!
If you start having second thoughts and feel like backing out of the transaction, talk to your agent about these feelings. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, buying a house is a huge life-changing decision, and your agent can help walk you through the anxieties, like they’re done with dozens of buyers before you. Professionals can help you determine if you really do need to cancel and manage the transaction for you so you can get your initial deposit back.
3. Buying the Wrong House
The very first thing any home buyer should do when shopping for a home is write up a list of priorities and define their objectives in purchasing a home. Figure out what features and benefits are the most important to you and which ones you can live without. It’s easy to overlook major factors that could come back to bite you later, so review this list before you close escrow.
It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of buying a home, especially if it’s your first time, and so you might settle for a home that’s actually a little bit less than you need. Having only one bathroom might seem suitable at the time, but after closing, sharing a bathroom with two grown sons may prove a bit more challenging than you’re comfortable with. So you sell the house and buy a two-bathroom home in another neighborhood. Well, now you’re moving again, and if the market is depressed or a buyer’s market, instead of spending a lot more money than is necessary, you could end up losing everything. The bottom line is to always make sure you buy the right house for what you need, never settle for “good enough.”