Buying Process:

Unlike popular belief the buying process starts with a pre-approval letter. With this letter you will be able to:
1. Know your buying power. You don’t want to look at 300K properties, find your perfect home, then find out you are approved for only 250K. Imagine the disappointment.
2. Once you find the home you want to make an offer on, you need the pre-approval letter to go along with the contact to the sellers. The best homes go fast!!! So you want to have your pre-approval letter ready to go with the contact so you don’t lose the home to someone else that has their paperwork ready.
When getting pre-approved you can work with your personal bank, which only has access to that bank’s mortgage programs or use a mortgage broker who has access to many banks with all of their programs. When choosing a loan officer either in a bank or a mortgage broker, make sure they are well recommended. I have seen many people not get their dream home because the loan officer did not do their job correctly. If you do not have a loan officer I can recommend a few people to you that I work with on a daily bases.
Once you are pre-approved next step is to make a list of what you want in a home. Make two colums what I want and what I must have in a home.

This list will help us with your search. There would be no reason for me to send you homes that are 2 bedrooms, 1000 square feet in Calallen if that is not what you are looking for. Plus, if you have ever seen the T.V. show Property Virgins then you will know that a lot of people have a “wine taste on a beer budget.” They are normally looking for homes that don’t exist in their price range.
Once you have choosen your top 10 or so homes then we can go view them and narrow it down futher.
During your search remember there are many types of homes for sell besides the normal seller and buyer situation, there are; bank owned, short sales, HUD homes. Once you have choosen the home you are looking for then you can make you offer.
Normally in your offer you wll ask for a ten day option period. The option period starts the first day that you and seller both agree on the contact. Then you have these ten days to; get a home inspection, bank can get their home appraisal done. If the home inspection comes back with major problems then you can renegiate the offer or cancel the contract within those ten days.