5 Essential Tips For a First Time Home Buyer in Virginia Beach 

As a first time home buyer purchase your first home can seem to be a scary yet exciting task.  Rightfully so, since it is most likely going to be the largest purchase you make in your entire life.  

I am sure that you have a lot of questions and as you move along the process you will have even more questions.  Well you are in luck because below we will address some of the most important tips to get the ball rolling in the right direction right from the start.

Buying A Home For The First Time Tips

1.  Home Buyers Loan Options

Look into how much of a down payment you will need to make.  Some people think you have to pay 20% down but that is not the case.  Each type of  loan is going to have a different down payment that you will need to make.  For example:

Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Loan- 3.5% of the sales price

Conventional Loan- 5% of the sales price

Veterans Affairs (VA) Loan- No down payment

You would probably think that of course you would just pick the one with the lowest down payment.  That makes perfect sense but its not always that easy.  While an FHA loan may be cheaper up front a conventional loan is cheaper over the long run.

2.  Get Pre-Approved To Buy A House.  

This step is very important because the last thing you want to do is spend weeks looking for a house just to find out that you don't qualify to buy the house you found that you want.  That would be very disappointing.

When you are getting pre-approved for a loan one of the good things is they will tell you how much you qualify for.  That will help you out dramatically because now you know which price range to look in.

Your credit score will be an important factor as well.  If you have less than a 620 the odds are a lender will not give you a loan.  Even if you do have less than a 620 you should still talk to a mortgage broker because they have many tricks they can do to help you raise your credit score.

Even if you have a great credit score if you have too much other debt the lender still might not give you a loan.

3.  Be Cautious Using Zillow For Houses To Buy.  

It might be fun to look on Zillow and it makes it really easy for you to look for your own houses.  The only problem is you might be wasting your time looking at houses that are no longer available.

The problem with Zillow is it doesn't update that quickly.  So if a house gets put under contract Zillow might still show it as active.  So that could mean you ended up wasting your time looking at houses that arn't available (which is quite a bit).

The best thing to do is to tell your real estate agent which type of houses you are interested in and they will send you a list of houses from the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).  The MLS is a database of houses that only licensed real estate agent are allowed to have access to and they have to pay to keep that access every month.

4.  Don't Contact The Seller's Agent Directly When You Find a House You Like

Another common thing people try to do is they look on Zillow for a house they want and then they contact the seller's agent because they think that they can get a cheaper price on the house because they don't have a real estate agent representing them.

This is a common misconception.  The way it works is the person selling the house pays the real estate agent.  When the seller agreed to list the house for sale with that agent they agreed to pay that agent 6% of the sales price to do so.

The selling agent will always split the commission with the buyers agent so each of them will get 3%.  This means the seller of the house is paying for both the buyer's agent and the seller's agent.  That means the agent representing you is actually 100% Free to you and 100% representing your best interests as the buyer.

If you don't use a buyer's agent then the seller's agent gets to keep the full 6%.  So really is doesn't make any sense for you to not use an agent because you are only hurting yourself.

5.  Get a Realtor That Specializes in the Virginia Beach Area

The better the agent knows the area and sub areas the easier it is going to be for you to find the right house you want.

You could look on Zillow to find the house that you want but then when you tell your agent that specializes in the area he might say that the area isn't quite a good as a similar house in a different area.  

Not only that the agent could have some insight that the housing market is doing better in certain areas more than other areas.  This could be very important to you because that could be the difference in making a lot money years after you have owned and decide to sell it and losing money.

Conclusion

As a first time home buyer looking to buy a house in Virginia beach the first thing you should do is find a true local specialized real estate agent and see if they have a good mortagage broker they recommend.  Then you can call them to get pre-approved for a home loan.

At this point you should know up to how much a bank will give you for a loan on a house and how much your down payment will be.  Then you can tell the realtor what you are looking for in a house and the neighborhood and they will start the search in finding you your dream house 100% FREE (remember the seller is paying their fee).