The Buyer Experience
8 Simple Steps
to Finding Your
New Home with
the Casey O'Neal
Team
8 Simple Steps
to Finding Your
New Home with
the Casey O'Neal
Team
Beginning your home search can be an overwhelming and daunting task. Because of that, our team makes sure that you understand each of the 8 Simple Steps that we take to make the process as easy and painless as possible. By the end of your search, with our support and guidance, you will live happily ever after in your new, dream home.
1. Wish 2. Pre-qualify 3. Listing Alerts 4. Home Tours 5. Offer 6. Acceptance 7. Close 8. Celebrate
Let’s get to know each other! Once you’re ready to work with our team, we’ll meet, either in person or virtually, for a Buyer Consultation to focus your search and determine what you want and need in a home. If an in-person meeting isn’t possible or practical, meeting on Zoom can be a great first step for us to educate you on the buying process and to learn more about your needs.
We can provide a choice of great mortgage partners, who can help you determine your buying price range with confidence. Be prepared to dig into paperwork during this part of the process such as pay stubs, W2’s, and tax returns. The lender will do a full review and then tell you what you will be able to borrow in order to purchase a home. This is a vital step in the home buying process and can be done online and virtually!
We'll get to know you — Need to move for a job? Want a shorter commute? Getting married? Having a baby? Need to upgrade or downsize? At this stage in the process, we’ll send you notifications about the newest listings that you’re most likely to be excited about. Be sure to let us know which ones jump out at you so that we can skip to the next step and schedule a viewing.
Here’s where the buying process gets really fun! We’ll schedule tours of the homes that you’ve loved from our listing alerts and we'll check out Open Houses together. Another option is for us to do a virtual walk through for you if the seller doesn’t already have one. We can do a virtual tour on Face time for you or in person walk-through. We’ll talk about how the budget will work and make sure that we find you the perfect home.
When you’re ready to make an offer, we will prepare and present a written offer to the seller. And while everyone loves getting their offer accepted right away, the seller could come back to us with a counter offer, or reject your initial offer all together. We’re happy to walk you through each of these possibilities and exactly how to handle them, and this process can be done using electronic signing. Once the offer is accepted, it’s time to get your financing finalized and move forward to the next step!
The sellers accepted your offer, and the home is going through appraisal and inspection. The appraisal is for the lender’s benefit, and ensures that the value and condition of the property matches the agreed upon sales price of the property while the inspection is for your benefit, making sure that everything in the home is functioning properly and there are no major issues. A title search, termite inspection, and possibly a survey will be completed next on the list. These are the last steps before the shiny keys to your home are placed in your hand... for good!
Get excited because it’s time to close on your home! This process includes a final walk-through, going through all of the final paperwork, wiring your down payment to the title company, and signing your name (a lot!). This step usually occurs at the title company’s office, using safe protocol, or with a drive through closing outside the title company’s office. You would want to bring two forms of ID at closing.
And now it's time to take the first step
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