Buying a home is a significant milestone in every person’s life, and making the right choice of property to purchase does not come easy. Whether an independent villa or an apartment, we all desire to own a house at some point. Additionally, the transition from a tenant to an owner is considerable and involves many firsts, in particular for a first-time home buyer.
The process of buying a real estate property includes a legal transaction as well as a financial transaction, and it takes weeks, if not months, to complete. But, once you find a place you can call your home, it’s worth the wait. Buying a home is not only the most important financial decision, but also a tricky one – in particular for first-time home buyers. You have to approach it with a clear head and an idea of how the process will unfold.
Buying a home requires a lot of time and effort; one wrong move or a hasty decision could lead to a regret of a lifetime. Therefore, a cautious examination of all the factors is required earlier than investing one’s savings.
To help you, we’ve included below the Home Buying Process Guide. This can assist you to make the home buying process manageable and help you make the best decisions possible as well as to find your way through the maze of facts, that’s out there, to provide you the lowdown on everything from house-hunting to home loans, budget planning, making an offer and organizing your move.
THE HOME BUYING PROCESS FLOW CHART
Refer our flowchart of buying a home below, best for first-time home buyers who want to understand the process step by step.
THE HOME BUYING PROCESS
STEP 1: First, decide to buy
There are so many advantages of buying, when compared with renting a property. Once you have decided to purchase, have a good look at your current situation, set up your finances and seek legal help and guidance.
STEP 2: Choose your Budget
When buying your dream home, a proper budget has to be planned to know how much money will be left each month to meet your expenses and to manage your anticipated financial situation. It should also point out the amount of the mortgage you’ll need to borrow to buy that home as well as determine whether the required repayments are within your budget. Remember that your first property will seldom be your last property; you have to guarantee that the property you are getting will satisfy your current needs and be within your budget. As a property buyer, understanding your family’s current major needs will help you make the right decision.
Once finished with the calculations, you can save the budget plan to your computer or take a printout copy for future reference.
STEP 3: Choose Location
It is necessary to choose; Take a good look at the location and the locality. Take time to learn the neighbourhood’s you’re considering: Research the schools and municipal, corporation services, and drive through them at various times, day and night, and to determine whether you want to live there. It is better to try a place adjacent to the prime area of your city so that the price is not that high. Location will also have a massive impact on the resale value of your home. Choose accurately and your home may be your best investment.
Verify Rental rates in the area – If you are planning about investing in a rental property, homes in high-rent or highly populated areas are ideal. Knowing the rental rate in the area helps you to pick the right property and location.
Verify Resale Value – Resale sale Value is an essential thing to consider before you plan to invest or buy a property. Property buyers do not consider resale value when they buy. They make the mistake of focusing fully on a prime locality or the budget of the property. If you pick out the wrong property or location, your future sales price may always much less than the other homes around it.
STEP 4: Start Your Research Early
As soon as you will, start reading Websites, newspapers, and magazines that have property listings. Make a note of particular homes you’re curious about whether Independent House or Apartment and see how long they stay the market. Also, note any changes in asking prices. this may offer you a way of the housing trends in specific areas.
Research Notes of an Independent House or Apartment must include Light and space, To DIY or not to DIY?, Close to amenities, Kitchen and bathroom, Parking, Number of bedrooms, DA approval, Schools, Living space, Storage, Views, Property, appreciation and resale value, Factors you can partially control when buying property, Factors you can control when selling property, The exterior and The interior, etc.
STEP 5: Figure out your funds – Determine How Much You Can Afford
Before you start the home-search process, it’s crucial to get an honest idea of how much amount you can afford. Lenders generally recommend that people search for homes that cost no more than 3 to 5 times their annual household income if the home buyers decide to make a 20 percent down payment and have a moderate amount of other debt. But you ought to make this determination based on your own financial situation.
STEP 6: Prequalified & Preapproved credit for Your Mortgage
Getting prequalified is that the initiative within the mortgage process (it’s usually pretty simple). You give your lender your overall financial picture, the lender evaluates your information, then the lender gives you a thought of the mortgage amount that you simply qualify for.
Preapproval is that the second step within the mortgage process. Here you’ll complete a loan application and provide detailed information to the lender (although you’ll not yet have a house picked out most likely, therefore the property information can be left blank). The lender will approve you for a selected amount and you’ll get a better idea of your rate of interest. This puts you at a plus with a seller because the vendor will know you’re one step closer to getting a mortgage.
(Note: you ought to have Proof on Employment and Income & your Co-signer)
If you get prequalified & preapproved credit for your mortgage before you choose out a home, then you’ll move quicker on purchasing a house (you won’t need to make your offer contingent on obtaining financing, which is particularly valuable in a competitive market).
STEP 7: Find Properties
Now it’s the time to find the potential property options in the localities of your choice. Check out the internet property listings, drive around and look for property sale signboard, and ask around to learn about the property that may be available in the neighbourhood’s you want. Make a list of all the things you saw in each property along with the builder details. Sit down, call the builders, gather more details about the property, get an appointment to site visit and put all of these together to shortlist. Now start touring these properties and strike out the ones that are not fulfilling all the key parameters.
STEP 8: Choose the Right Real Estate Builder
After shortlisting the visited property, it’s the time to choosing the right builder for your dream home, which is an extremely critical step. So, you must analyse, compare and choose a builder who is the best amongst his competitors and is offering what suits your needs. The analysation includes the following:
- Experience and efficiency of the builder in the Industry
- Number of homes built/ sale by the builder
- Look into the architecture, spatial planning, different styles, scales and lifestyles of the existing and proposed projects to understand what they have to offer
- Number of ongoing projects
- Testimonials of the existing customers
- A well-coordinated team of professionals who will be able to give complete, truthful information to you on the varied queries that you may have
- get look into theProprietorship, license of the builder and his legal authenticity, certifications from local and reputed organisations
- research on any litigations or legal embroilments of the builder
- projects approval by banks, especially Nationalised banks
- Study the quality of material used to lay an utmost emphasis on the structure as undertaken by the builder
- Check the Quality of workmanship, transparency in the work schedule, quality and progress of work, post-care service
- Resale and appreciation of the value of their past projects
- History of a builder with a good growth tangent
STEP 9: Discuss With Builder
Once you choose the best real estate builder and a property that meets your needs, discuss with them about property launch price, proprietorship, loan processing, approvals, litigation, verify EC & Patta details, etc. Before doing that, get complete knowledge about the local market trend and find out the prices of similar properties in the area.
STEP 10: Make An Offer and Negotiate
After a successful discussion with your builder of the property, you want—and you will—it’s time to make an offer. Ask your builder about the right price to offer; Once you get an idea about the likely discount, make an offer. Talk to the builder’s sales team and tell it that you want to buy quickly. A builder is more likely to give a discount if it knows that you are a serious buyer. If you’re willing to budge in price, be ready to negotiate a counteroffer that is presented to you
Things to remember while making an offering?
- Do your research so that you recognize what the property is worth, based on the selling price of similar property therein area.
- Don’t accompany your highest offer first (unless you recognize the owner is seriously considering other offers).
- Check the builder requirements/intentions in a rush to sell, you would possibly able to knock more off the price.
- Try to not give away how much you love the place because the builder might imagine they can get a better offer out of you.
STEP 11: Accept Offer and Book The Property
You like the property, they just like the offer… it’s a match! When you’ve made an offer that’s within your budget, accept and lock your property by booking your earnest, which may a good-faith deposit of about 1 per cent of the acquisition price. Parallelly, your builder will prepare the paperwork of the same for you to sign and they submit it, along with your pre-approval letter and KYC’s. All this usually happens quickly, especially if other buyers have an interest in the same property. Once booking is done, collect the set of legal documents of the property and booking receipt.
STEP 12: Schedule Property Inspection
Once your booking is done, arrange to have a home inspector to visit the property and identify anything that needs to be fixed. Both you and the builder should receive a copy of the inspection report, after which you can renegotiate with your builder in case anything needs to be fixed. In worst cases, the contingency also protects you in the event that you would like to withdraw your offer.
STEP 13: Check For and Clear Legal Queries
There are several aspects should be addressed when it comes to the legality of the property. You need to verify the original title deeds along with occupancy certificate/ building approvals, letter of allotment, sanctioned plan, society documents, encumbrance certificate, sale agreement, transfer deeds, share certificate, Conversion and land-use permissions and more. And make sure all the documents for sale are adequately stamped and registered. These can be done by hiring a legal Advisor or a lawyer. They will check the all mentioned above documents and prepare for legal queries if any. Collect the queries and send to your builder to rectify it.
STEP 14: Finalize The Loan
Now it’s time to finalize your loan. A deadline is going to be set and you’ll need final approval by that date. Your builder will guide you completely to get a bank loan from your preferred banker, as they are tied with multiple bankers. Your Builder’s sales team will follow your preferred bank co-ordinator and initiate for Bank loan process.
STEP 15: Proceed For Sale Agreement
In the sale of an immovable property, agreement of sale is one of the important documents because sale deed is based on it. Also helps in building a better understanding between both the parties and their specific roles in the sale. Once all the legal queries have been rectified, proceed for sale agreement, including the terms and conditions of a potential contract of sale are enumerated along with the offered consideration, payment details, the prerequisite requirement of no encumbrances, drafting the sale deed for registration, refunding the earnest money if the titles found to be not proper, penalty on the paid amount if the purchaser fails to complete the sale, take action if the property gets affected by any kind of government notices, tax-related documents, description about the property schedule.
STEP 16: Schedule A Property Appraisal
A property appraisal is an examination of the worth of the property. After you have been approved for a home loan, your banker will arrange to appraise the worth of the property. This process is best for you, to ensure that they are providing a loan for a property that has been priced fairly.
STEP 17: Coordinate The Paperwork
Just imagine, there is a lot of legal & financial paperwork involved in buying a property. Your builder has to handle all of the paperwork and verify all through drafting. Following paper works are essential.
Transfer Documents – It refers to the documents relating to the transfer of ownership from the seller to the buyer. Documents include: 1) deed, 2) bill of sale, 3) seller’s affidavit, 4) transfer tax declaration, 5) transfer tax declaration, and 6) buyer/seller settlement statement
Home Loan Documents – It refers to the documents relating to the mortgage issued by the banker to you, the buyer. These include: 1) note, 2) mortgage, 3) loan application, and 3) Truth-In-Lending Disclosure (TILA).
Real Estate Title Documents – The title company may send you the title insurance commitment showing that the party who has the title is, in fact, the seller, in addition to any liens on the title. You’ve to review this document and so should your attorney if you have one.
Title Insurance – It protects you and the lender from the possibility that the seller didn’t have free and clear title when the seller sold you the property.
Property Tax – It is the amount of money that you are required to pay based on the property’s assessed value. Property tax is very costly, depending on where you live. Its payments are usually due annually, but more often than not, they are divided into and included in your monthly escrow payment.
STEP 18: Closing Day – SALE DEED
It’s now time to move into your new property and plan together with your finances so you’ll assist to pay off your mortgage sooner. At the same, time your banker or builder will allow you to know in advance the total amount of money you’ll need to bring for any closing costs.
