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TWO - Understand the Process
DO...
• Research and read. Absorb everything you can about home buying, especially information for first-time homebuyers.
Spring is the traditional homebuying season. During this time, personal finance magazines such as Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Money, and Smart Money publish home buying guides, which you can use for research and education.
Read resourceful books on home buying. Some titles to consider include:
- 100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask by Ilyce R. Glink (Times Books)
- Yes! You Can Own the Home You Want-The First-Time Buyer's Guide to Affordable Homeownership by Gary Eldred (John Wiley & Sons)
- Home Buying for Dummies by Eric Tyson and Ray Brown (IDG Books)
You can find these at Amazon or at your local bookstore.
• Understand the role that each professional plays: agent, broker, buyer-broker/agent, Realtor®, lender, attorneys. Know the definitions of these roles and ask plenty of questions.
• Consult free, or affordable resources that complement your own research, such as the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.
• Register for home buying fairs and seminars. Non-profit housing organizations, community and civic organizations and financial services companies offer home buying seminars, often at no cost. Even those with a certain "sales" element to them can be useful if you approach them as an information-gathering exercise.
• Go online. The Web provides excellent access to vital and sometimes hard-to-find real estate data that could take months to get using traditional, offline methods.
DON'T...
• Approach the process without having done your homework.
• Underestimate the power of asking questions and gathering information up front.
• Learn about the process as you're living it.
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