Owning a home is one of the biggest things you can do to positively effect your net worth, that said nothing is guaranteed so knowing the steps of a home purchase and having a detailed good faith estimate of your expenses will reduce the stress of finding your ideal home.

<h2>Start with Financing</h2>
If your unable to secure a preapproval for a loan, the rest of the plan is worthless! Start by talking to a trusted loan officer that has worked with someone you know or the REALTOR helping you find your home. It’s advisable to work with someone that has a local office, keep in mind the seller of the house you want might not trust an unknown bank to deliver the funds on time. If a seller does not trust your loan officer to complete the deal, it does not matter how much your offering.

<h2>What is Your ideal living environment</h2>
Buying a home is more than a place to hang your hat to most people and regardless of if your an investor with a targeted return or a first time buyer, there should be a specific list of criteria that your target fits. Location, school districts, mass transit accessibility may or may not be important to you, but by working with your REALTOR, you will be able to narrow down the number of homes that match your search to just a handful of possibilities. Now know how much your going to spend and what you can get for it!

<h2>Writing the offer on your Home</h2>
Once you have found your ideal home or the perfect addition to your portfolio, it’s time to write your offer. Currently in Las Vegas it is very much a sellers market, with less than 9,200 homes for sale currently, a low number by historic rates. The offer you will write will have a number of places for you to negotiate everything from who pays for the home warrantee to how many days you have to inspect the property. Make sure that you understand how “clean” your offer will look to the seller and make it easy for them to say yes! Or you will get to go through the process again until your stars are better aligned 😉

<h2>Your offer was accepted</h2>
Congratulations, in a market like this it’s likely you have beaten at least one other offer! Now it’s time to open escrow, schedule your inspections and get full underwriting from your Loan Officer.