My exodus from city life into our family’s first home came at a snail’s pace. I knew little about the home buying process other than the general rundown—pick a house, secure funding, make an offer, then pay your mortgage, property taxes, and insurance every month. My image of a simple plan with a few steps was dashed after our first few months of house hunting. My husband and I were outgrowing our apartment in Brooklyn, NY and began our search on Long Island, NY when our son was five years old. We finally secured and moved into our first home in New Jersey when he was ten years old and our second child was just born. There were a lot of factors that turned our home search into a five-and-a-half-year endeavor. We spent lots of time (and gas) doing research, and still we hit a lot of snags, encountered shady practices, had a hard time finding a real estate agent, and fought through an extremely competitive market.
My husband and I started out mainly doing our own research; driving through areas, taking notes on the style of homes, parks, schools, activity, and neighborhood feel. Over time online real estate sites and online mapping became more proficient and we were able to include these tools to assist. We lived about an hour from most of our desired towns, so Google Street View was a favorite go-to for sneak peeks without leaving home. We also used the internet to help calculate the home price range within our means, and with that we organized a comprehensive map of the neighborhoods that we liked and could afford. It took a lot of time but was a crucial step. That initial legwork meant we could properly and quickly sort through house listings and filter out those that were not a fit.
Confident Home Buyer Tool Kit Tips:
Do your homework! Figure out where you want to be and if you can afford to be there.
Map it out as you go. Figure out the characteristics you want or don’t want in your future neighborhood. Then use the tools available to you and get to know your desired areas.
Find a trustworthy REALTOR®! It is important to have a professional in your corner who is ready to listen to your needs and work for your benefit.
For the Long Island and Westchester leg of our journey, seeing available listings and dealing with the agents listing the properties was tedious. We would call listing agents within minutes of seeing a listing post and they would tell us it was already under contract. We tried using a few different real estate agents but found that they were not sending us house listings that matched our criteria or desired area. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. We encountered agents with bad attitudes, poor work ethic and more than one that tried to get us to sign contracts paying them an extra percentage at closing. It was hard to find an agent who was honest, ready to listen and work with us.
Amid trying to find an agent, we continued looking at properties and found a few we liked along the way. However, suburbs within an hour north, south, east, and west of New York City are hot commodities. We found ourselves competing fiercely against other interested home buyers plus cash-offer investors. So, on one side we kept hearing the words “cash is king” ringing in our ears as our offers were beat out by cash offers. And on the other side, our offers were often among numerous other offers and we were simply outbid. Being prepared helped us compete, but not enough to close.
We were exasperated by this point and took a break from the search for about a year. During our hiatus, my husband’s work situation changed, and it allowed us to also search in New Jersey. Around the same time, I got pregnant with our daughter and we knew we had to hit the ground running again and find a house. We scouted out a few neighborhoods online that spring, finally connected with a REALTOR® that we met at an open house, and spent the entire summer seeing houses. We were well seasoned in navigating the process by then and those past experiences (plus some luck, good timing, and a solid REALTOR® brought us to the door of our first home, keys in hand, by that winter.
My family is definitely happy in the home we found, and relieved to be done with the process. When I look back however, there are lessons I wish I learned sooner. So, here are my tidbits of advice to any first-time homebuyers:
Do your homework! Figure out where you want to be and if you can afford to be there. Choose what city, county, and neighborhood you may want to live in. Assess your budget and calculate your price range so you are not looking at areas you won’t be able to qualify for.
Map it out as you go. Figure out the characteristics you want or don’t want in your future neighborhood. Then use the tools available to you and get to know your desired areas. There are free online resources to give you visual aids and data that will be imperative to tightening your criteria. Also, when you have time, do the legwork. Drive by potential homes and neighborhoods in the day, and again at night. Stop in local stores and restaurants, have a cup of coffee or a meal and talk to community members and neighbors and learn all that you can to take the first steps in narrowing your search.
Find a trustworthy REALTOR®! It is important to have a professional in your corner who is ready to listen to your needs and work for your benefit. As you search for the right REALTOR®, trust your instincts, and spend the time needed to weed out the undesirables and most importantly, do not settle. Finding a REALTOR® that we were happy with early in our search would have helped us navigate minefields like the extremely competitive housing market in our desired areas.
If you are a first-time homebuyer like I was, you are already in the right place. Using TruSite Realty's Confident Homebuyers Tool Kit is a great first step as you start your search. The kit offers invaluable assistance with budgeting, loan qualification and information about the home-buying process. All the tools that we spent years gathering are right at your fingertips so take advantage. Trust me, the feeling when we turned the key in the door of our home for the first time was worth every bit of the searching, planning and hard work. It is a feeling I want for everyone out there in search of their first home. Happy house hunting!
About Eshe Kamau-Newman
Eshe Kamau-Newman is a married mom of two, a native of Brooklyn, NY, and a super-fan of words. She can usually be found crossing T’s and dotting I’s as a freelance Proofreader and Copy Editor or blogging and copywriting when the mood strikes. Eshe lives for her family, her faith, helping others, and dancing like no one is watching.
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