Home Buying Process

Home Buying Process

What is the home buying process?

Whilst buying a home is a daunting task, every year hundreds of thousands of people do it. To make the whole process seem easier, we have organized the process into easily digestible segments.

Should you find somewhere within your price range that you like, you should make sure that you visit it a few times and try to get a feel for the neighbourhood. You should make an offer on the property through the estate agent, or you may need to haggle with the seller. Don't offer too much, try and negotiate. Eventually, should your offer be accepted you can go to your mortgage lender to tell them you've found a place.

Unfortunately, it is still true that even if your offer is accepted, in England that is not the end of it. Someone else can come in with a higher offer, which could be accepted, unless you offer a higher amount. This is known as gazumping.

Your lender will ask you to fill in a mortgage application form, and once this is sent in, the lender will commission a valuation report, a check to check your property is a reasonable risk for the lender. You may need to pay the bill for the valuation. You should also get a full structural survey if you are buying an older property. Should the valuation come up with a lower figure than your offer, you need to inform the seller and try to negotiate a lower price. If you can't do this, you need to decide if you are prepared to pay over the odds or pull out of the deal. The lender will make a formal mortgage offer should they be happy with the valuation, your employer, bank and previous lender or landlord references.

Your legal work should be done by a qualified solicitor or licensed conveyancer. They will liaise with the lender and sort out your mortgage documentation, draw up sale contracts with the vendor's solicitor and conduct searches with the local authority to see if any plans will affect the property. With the vendor's solicitor, they will agree what is included in the sale and what the moving dates will be.

Once everything is satisfactory, contracts are exchanged, and you will need to pay a deposit, normally 10% of the purchase price, which will be non-refundable should you pull out. Your completion date is set here, which could be more or less than four weeks. You need to have buildings insurance at this point.

On the day of completion you should collect the keys from the estate agent and you are now legally the owner of the property. Move your belongings in and enjoy your new home!

In the previous sections we've looked at how the different types of mortgages work, examined the different methods of paying interest and discovered the difference between interest only and repayment.

Having sorted out the mechanics of how mortgages work and are paid off this section is designed to give you a sound understanding of the process of buying a house and moving in. We'll look at how much you can afford to offer and a detailed look at the actual processes of buying.

What is the home buying process?

© AskFinancially.com 2009

Mortgage Advice

Insurance & Loans

Copyright

Home Buying Process

What is the home buying process?

© AskFinancially.com 2009

Mortgage Advice

Insurance & Loans

Copyright