Checklist for buying your first home

Quick insights

What do you need to buy your first home? Your experience will be unique despite the main parts of the journey being similar for many first-time buyers. Detailed, up-front planning can make those pivotal common steps, as well as the special nuances, less challenging along the way. 

Here’s a non-exhaustive checklist of key parts, from upfront planning and finding your home to reaching the closing table and what to consider after everything’s said and done. 

1. Get your finances in order

This is the part when you understand the details of your financial situation and what the numbers mean. There are a few useful steps to take at this point, but they’ll set you up for the rest of the homebuying process. 

Consider using affordability calculators to prep financially for your first home purchase. You can use your own financial information to estimate the house and loan terms you can afford. 

Optional: Get preapproved

Getting a mortgage preapproval means asking a lender to review your financial information and provide a conditional commitment for a specific loan amount and preliminary terms before you make an offer on a home. You apply with specific financial documents, and if approved, the lender provides a preapproval letter. This shows the loan you qualify for, which can help you set the budget for your home search and stand out to sellers. 

If you’re interested in preapproval, find a lender that you think can help you the most through the process.

2. Research locations and homes

Try to decide where you want to live and the type of home you want (townhouse, single-family, condo, etc.). Set your priorities—from the number of bathrooms to living in an HOA that handles some exterior home maintenance. Once you choose a preferred location and neighborhood, you can review market trends, such as how much houses are selling for. You might adjust your search criteria, such as searching in more than one town, based on how much home you can afford. 

3. Find a house

Now you can really start your home search. There are various strategies and resources to find homes that meet your preferences. Consider online resources, open houses and working with real estate agents.

Chase Home Lending Advisors can also help you understand your mortgage options in specific areas along the way. 

Working with real estate professionals

These professionals tend to focus on personalized service; they’ll typically ask about your preferences and goals to help your home search. When you’re ready for the purchasing process, your agent starts to represent you to the seller and any other agents. For the most part, your real estate professional can help with homebuying from start to finish, including the next key part: making an offer. 

4. Make the offer

The purchase offer is your formal proposal to the seller saying that you want to buy a property. The common components of the offer include: 

Sellers can review every offer they receive and accept, reject or counteroffer. There are various strategies that can make your offer stand out or be competitive with others. For example, your preapproval alone can be a positive signal to sellers. A certain amount of earnest money, a deposit held in escrow and applied to the purchase, can also demonstrate your seriousness. 

5. Apply for the loan

After an offer is accepted, borrowers need to start the loan application with the lender of their choice. This includes submitting all required information and documentation.

6. Inspection and appraisal

If an offer is accepted, with or without any negotiations of the terms, the home purchase process continues. Inspections and appraisals are typically conducted around the same time as due diligence for the home purchase. 

Both help to confirm the property’s condition and value, which can be reassuring to buyers, sellers and lenders alike: 

6. Settlement

The settlement (AKA closing) is the formal process to finalize the property ownership transfer. The closing date is set when the purchase offer is accepted. Leading up to this date are all the steps outlined above, and you’ll agree to the financing terms with your lender of choice, then organize how the down payment and closing costs are paid. 

If you’re working with a real estate professional, you might work with their office to ensure all the paperwork is ready for closing day. If you’re closing digitally, that can help streamline the last leg of the process. Either way, there are a lot of key legal documents to prepare and sign so that the legal transfer of ownership proceeds on time. Once all that’s finished, you get the keys to your new home. 

In conclusion

When buying your first home, details, financial prep (and hopefully the checklist above) can unlock a more satisfying and streamlined experience. Besides the house itself, the important choices you’ll make include which lender and real estate professional you work with. Many aspects of the homebuying process can seem mysterious and abstract. Pros like Chase Home Lending Advisors can guide you through house hunting, the many homebuying terms and the financial decisions you make on the journey toward homeownership.