Many people find it useful to have a checklist, and on any good checklist, these 2 items should be the first items on that list, as they are essential to getting the ball rolling on your dream of home ownership.
The 2 major items a potential home shopper needs to begin to think about before contacting a realtor is to:
1. Determine how your credit looks.
Luckily in this computer age there are many ways for us to easily and quickly check our credit and credit scores. There are multiple sites out there to check your credit for free.
Two that we like are www.freecreditreport.com and www.creditkarma.com. If you have a credit score below 640 you may want to dive deeper into your report to see if there are opportunities to increase that score. Ways to do that would be by disputing errors if there are any, with the credit bureaus, making sure you are current with all monthly payments, and reducing debt where possible.
2. Get a pre-approval from a mortgage professional.
Once you know about your credit, you should contact a mortgage professional and work on a mortgage pre-approval. But don’t just pick any mortgage professional, as they are not all created equal. Do your research so that you can feel confident that the person you pick is knowledgeable and will take care of you as if they were buying their own home. Happy shopping!!!
If you have any questions about either of these items, please reach out to us today. We are happy to answer any questions.
