So you are ready to buy a home.  Follow our top 5 home buying strategies and see how you can keep loads of your money in your jeans!

1.     Select Your Winning Team
Buying a home is a complicated process. It’s imperative to establish a documented agency relationship with a professional realtor and profit from all the rights, benefits, and privileges of being a client.  Furthermore, a realtor has access to a well-developed network of industry experts, from lenders, lawyers, home inspectors and movers, to assist homebuyers.

2.     Get Pre-Approved
Prior to looking at homes visit your mortgage specialist and obtain a written pre-approval.  This approval happens after all your personal information has been checked and verified.  Quickly, you’ll know the amount of mortgage you’ll receive. The result is a very powerful weapon to have in your negotiating arsenal.

3.     Play the Game of Nines
Before house hunting, make a list of nine things you want in the new home. Then make a list of the nine things you don’t want.  We call this “NINE OF THIS AND NONE OF THAT”.  You can use this list as a scorecard to rate each property that you see. The one with the biggest score is your new home!  This helps avoid confusion and keeps things in perspective when you’re comparing dozens of homes.

When house hunting, keep in mind the difference between “SKIN AND BONES”. The BONES are things that cannot be changed such as the location, view, size of lot, noise in the area, school district, and floor plan. The SKIN represents easily changed surface finishes like carpet, wallpaper, paint colours, and window coverings. Buy the house with good BONES, because the SKIN can always be changed to match your tastes.

4.     Buy When The Right Property Is Presented To You
There aren’t a set number of houses you should see before you decide to purchase.  Visit as many as it takes to find the one for you.  On average, homebuyers see 15 houses before choosing one.  Just be sure to communicate often with your realtor about everything you’re looking for.  It will help avoid wasting your time.

5.     Don’t Offer Blind
What price should you offer when you offer on a home?  If you fail to research the market in order to understand what comparable homes are selling for, making your offer would be like bidding blind.  You could easily bid too much, or fail to make a competitive offer at all on an excellently valued home. Prior to submitting your offer it’s crucial that your realtor provides you with a comparative market analysis, which shows you the neighbourhood sales history and the currently for sale ask prices.

Happy Buying!