Steps to Buying a Home in Nashville and Middle Tennessee

Why is it important for homebuyers to have a game plan? How does one get started with it? I’ll be giving you a quick overview of the home buying process.

Preparing to Buy Your Nashville, TN Home

 As a huge sports fan, I think sports is a good analogy hence I talk about a game plan for everybody. One of the first things that we have to end up on a reaction is to start being a ready-able and willing buyer. People are obviously willing because they are looking into it, but then being able is the thing that keeps a lot of people from moving forward.

It’s never too early to start learning about the home buying process and to start talking to professionals. I love to talk to people earlier rather than later and also have them talk to a lender – not to get preapproved early because that’s not going to help them but just to find out where they are, and what they need to be doing in order to make sure that they are ready and also what not to do. Sometimes people do things that hurt them as well as don't do the things that could help them.

What to Avoid Before Pre-approval

An example of something that would hurt you is if you're getting ready to look for a home and you bought a new car and started having car payments. Another example is buying the furniture for the home before you have the home. Opening up lots of credit cards is another thing to avoid before and even after getting pre-approved.

Some people who have no credit score might think you’re a bad person. In which case, we need to know so that a lender can tell you the steps that you can take in order to actually have a credit score and get it up as high as possible by doing it the right way.

A lot of people obviously have too low of a credit score and either get a loan that places them in the position to be able to make a reasonable downpayment or to get into a program where there is no downpayment, which is even better. Those are the things that we want to look at upfront unless you're financially ready to move forward. It doesn't really matter that your lease is up, or whatever that looks like I've seen. You gotta have the finances to buy the home or at least know the right person to talk to to help you get the finances correct.

Breaking from a Lease

There are different types of loan programs out there and they all have different requirements. You also just need to know what that's looking like and what's realistic to be able to get there within X period of time. Once we know that, we can look at it, are you in a lease? If so, can you break it? And does it make sense to break it? 

There are some leases that have provisions. I met a girl and we talked about that and her apartment complex’s landlord will actually let her leave if it's because she's buying something. That's something to look at because people just assume that they can't. 

For other people, they can get out by paying a flat fee or one or two months' worth of rent. If interest rates are really low and you find a place that you really like and you're actually you're probably at least potentially going to have even lower mortgage payments. 

For some people, it makes sense to go ahead and break their lease early. There are different things we can look at to see if people are ready. Whatever it looks like for your investments to make you more money in the next 12 months or so. If you don't have very specific steps and you don't have specific timeframes, you're less likely to get there.

Here’s a tip! Have a picture of your goal hung up in your house as a vision board. It's a human motivation trick which I think is very helpful. To know what you want and see it every day and remember that this is why I'm not spending that dollar over here. I'm putting it in the house savings jar. 

Are you thinking of buying or selling a home in the Nashville - Middle Tennessee area, call me at (615) 930-0313, schedule a call with me, or send me a message! Let’s get your game plan going today!