In the past year I have picked up four new clients that called be after they said their agent, just didn't understand them and they lost them their dream home. This concerns me a lot when I get this kind of call. The first time home buyer usually just needs some additional coaching and just a basic understanding of the process of buying a home.
If you are a first time home buyer, I want you to come to my office, sit down with me and discuss your situation, what you are looking for, and time lines. Then we can put on paper, what you need to do before we can find you that dream home. This way, we don't get in to another situation where you feel the agent didn't listen to you and you lost your dream home.
After sitting down with you, we'll order a copy of your credit report through a mortgage broker. Then we'll start to discuss what you are looking for in a home and what your timelines are. If I think your timelines are unrealistic, I will tell you so. When someone calls me who has never bought a home and says they would like to see a home they saw on my website, the first thing I ask is, are you pre-qualified with a mortgage broker and when was the last time you saw a copy of your credit report?
If they say don't have a pre-qualification letter and I can't remember the last time I saw my credit report, I tell them they are not ready to buy a home with me then. I explain to them that most mortgages are higher than they have to be because people don't get a copy of their credit report. When I used to work for a credit card company in the 1990's we saw that 51% of credit reports had errors on them. These errors can take up to 90 days to fix and if you don't take the time to fix them it can either cost you your dream home or cost you $200-$500 a month in extra mortgage payments.
Once you have the credit report fixed, a pre-qualification letter in hand, and you now know how much you home you can afford, you can now go online and start looking for your dream home. If you do all this, you won't be disappointed because your mortgage broker has to tell you that they can't get you the loan until you fix the credit error or they just can't get you the loan because of your credit score.
For more information on buying your first home, please call or e-mail me anytime and I will send you a notebook for first time home buying and get you free tickets to my next first time home buying seminar.
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