5 Steps to Buying a Home in Howard County MD in 2011 - Step 5

Step 5: Choose Your Realtor and Your Lender

Well, you’ve saved and researched, checked your credit, and determined your comfort level for spending on your new home. If you haven’t come across a good lender or real estate agent yet, now’s the time to make the leap.

Pay attention to the agents who have responded to you in a timely, thorough fashion, answering your questions and offering additional relevant information as needed. Try to ensure that both of you are on the same page with regard to your needs, timelines and goals, and that your personalities mesh. I firmly believe that finding your next home should be a mostly fun and pleasant experience, rather than a completely stress-inducing event. If you’re starting to feel totally overwhelmed and stressed out, it may be time to search further for the right Realtor before making a decision about who to move forward with. After all, you may be spending quite a lot of time with this person, for at least the next several weeks, if not months!

It makes a lot of sense to sit down with a prospective agent at their firm, meeting to talk about the market, the home buying process, the steps you’ll need to take, and what you should be aware of along the way. It may be helpful to both you and the agent to schedule an additional appointment to see some properties together, to ensure that you both have a chance to evaluate the prospect of working with each other. It is absolutely in a buyer’s best interests to work closely with one Realtor, who will then get to know exactly what they’re looking for and who can be ever vigilant in looking for homes and home features that would work best for them; signing a buyer-broker agreement ensures the buyer’s interests are well cared for.

While you’re talking with your Realtor, make sure to ask which mortgage brokers they recommend – after all, they are actively involved in the real estate processes all the time, and should be able to give you good solid referrals from their recent past experiences with other clients. And most likely, if you’re in synch with a realtor, who works frequently with particular lenders, you’ll also be in synch with that lender. My clients frequently talk at settlement about how wonderful it was to work with both of us together, assisting them together all along the way, and knowing that we all had their best interests at heart.

Did you miss the first four Steps to Buying a Howard County Home in 2011? Step 1 | Step 2 | Step 3| Step 4

Best regards, Gretchen