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Buying your first home can be a great experience. I’m Ted Black in Jacksonville, Florida, and I’m here to explain how to buy your first house.

The first thing you want to do is contact your local real estate agent. They’re going to be able to do a couple things for you. The first thing that they’re going to do is put you in contact with a mortgage broker who can get you pre-approved for financing.

The mortgage broker is going to want a few personal items from you, including your social security number, as well as your annual income and your monthly debts. Once you get this information to them, they’ll be able to find out what you’re pre-approved for, and they’ll give that number to you and the real estate agent, and then you know what types of homes to shop for, so you’re not shopping outside of your price range.

Your Real estate agent will be able to give you a list of properties available in that price range, and in the locations that you desire most. Once you’ve narrowed it down to that one special property, you’re going to want to do a market analysis of that neighborhood so you know exactly what the current properties are selling for, what they’ve sold for in the last couple of months. This will give you peace of mind when making your offer so you know you’re not spinning an offer that’s higher than what the current market value is.

Once the offer is accepted, at that point in time you’re going to have a due diligence period, or inspection period, generally a week or two after the effective date of the contract. That’s going to allow you to send in a home inspector and make sure that the home is in good condition, and all of the appliances and items within the home are warranted in their working condition, OK. I’m Ted Black in Jacksonville, Florida, and I hope that helps you a little bit on how to buy your first home. Again, I highly recommend you contact your local real estate agent. Start with them, and they’ll get you pointed in the right direction. Thanks and have a great day.

How to negotiate the price down and we are starting right now! Be sure to read up until tip 10: How to save yourself an entire month’s mortgage! Hey everyone, My name is Ashland Joomla, and I’m a realtor and buyer specialist in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Today I want to talk to you about ten negotiation tips that have helped save my buyers money when purchasing their home! Tip number one: Ask your real estate agent what the average sale price to original list price ratio in your area is. Here in Chattanooga – It’s about ninety-seven percent, which means that sellers are aware they may have to come down on their home price by about three percent. So if the home is listed at two hundred thousand that means the sellers know they may have to come down about six thousand dollars to one hundred and ninety-four thousand. Always negotiate with this in mind. If you think the seller is willing to settle at one hundred ninety-four thousandOffer one hundred ninety thousand and see if they’ll meet you in the middle.

Tip number two: Negotiate personal property – furniture, accessories, Lawnmowers, if there’s a lot of yard maintenance. Maybe there’s an island in the kitchen that you’d like to have that isn’t attached. Ask for that!

Tip number three: In the state of Virginia. The seller is responsible for septic inspections. Typically, they inspect it by doing a walkover of the drain field. If this is important to you, negotiate that the seller have the septic pumped and Inspected.

Tip number four: Negotiate a survey. If there isn’t a recent survey of the property – have a seller get one done before closing.

Tip number five: Negotiate a home warranty into the deal. A home warranty is a one-year service agreement that covers the repair or replacement of many major home system components and appliances that typically break down over time due to normal wear and tear. This could potentially save you thousands of dollars!

Tip number six: Negotiate closing cost credits to cover closing costs. The benefit of the credit comes when the buyer needs to bring money to the closing table. If the closing costs are covered by the credit, the buyer only needs to bring the down payment. However, lenders have restrictions on how much sellers can credit to buyers at closing. The amount allowed to cover closing costs varies with the lender but here in Tennessee, it’s usually around 3% of the purchase price. So if it were a $200,000 home – the most amount of money you could ask for would be $6,000.

Tip number 7:Write a contingency in the contract that states if the home doesn’t appraise to value that you can cancel the contract. Home appraisal is an unbiased report on the worth of a house in the fair market performed by a trained and licensed individual. Appraisals are needed to ensure the home buyer, the home seller, and the mortgage lender receive the accurate and true value of the real estate in question.

Tip number 8:After the home inspection is complete negotiate repairs.

Tip number 9:Negotiate a housecleaning! More than just “broom clean”. Get the home professionally clean before closing. Tip number 10:You can save yourself an entire month’s mortgage by negotiating the settlement date to the beginning of the month. If you closed on October 1st, your payment won’t be due until December 1st. If you closed on October 30th, your first mortgage is still due on December 1st! So try and always negotiate your settlement date to be as close to the beginning of the month as possible to maximize those free days.