Eliminating Stress When Purchasing Your First Home

This post is written by Jennifer Warwick.  Jennifer is a mother, health nut, blogger, and when she can find time, a real estate agent. Jennifer has been blogging about her life and experiences since just after college past her first pregnancy, and into her first home. When she isn’t cooking dinner or hammering signs into lawns she can be found running around training for her next half marathon!

Buying your first home is a stressful experience. When the initial excitement of deciding on the perfect neighborhood, finding the best house for your budget, and signing on the dotted line begins to fade, you’re left with coming up with a down payment, signing loan documents, handling inspections, escrow, and the anxiety that comes with packing and moving all of your belongings. It’s easily one of the most stressful times in anyone’s life.

With that said, my husband and I moved into our first home just last summer, and I can honestly say that it was one of the most frustrating and anxiety-inducing experiences that I’ve ever experienced. Now, from this awful experience, I was able to gain some knowledge on the entire process, and I can say that there are things that I would do differently if we had it all to do over again. That’s what I want to share with you today. I want to give you some advice that I wish someone had given me before we went through this entire process.

Ensure you’re working with quality people

Our first real estate agent was a nightmare to work with. She recommended a loan officer who couldn’t get us approved with favorable terms, she didn’t answer phone calls (or return the call in a timely fashion), and she was quick to show us properties that didn’t contain the items on our wish list, or were too far above our agreed upon budget.

It didn’t last long. We ultimately hired a real estate agent who put us in touch with a loan officer who we loved (and would highly recommend), was more than thoughtful about returning calls, and showed us just what we wanted to see without pressuring us to view properties in a separate part of town, or that were above our price range. It was slow going, but she found us the house of our dreams, and for that we’re highly appreciative.

Anticipate hiccups

Nothing goes right when buying a house. Anticipate these issues before they happen, and you’ll find that you’re much more likely to laugh when they do as opposed to stressing out. Oh, and in anticipating thing going wrong, don’t buy a house without hiring (and listening to) a home inspector.

Accept that you can’t have it all

You might not find everything on your wish list in your budget, or you might learn that living just outside of the area that you had initially chose actually makes more financial sense. Unless you have a budge that supports it, you have to understand that — at some point in the process — you’re going to have to compromise. We didn’t get it all, but it’s better than renting.

Hire movers

I wish I had. We looked up the cost of hiring movers to move us out of our condo and into our new home, but ultimately decided that we’d just take a few days off and do it ourselves.

Big mistake. The cost of the movers was only slightly more than the cost of us both taking off work, and we managed to damage more than a few items in the process. In addition, it seems like the entire thing was one big fight. Next time, I’m going to overrule my husband and hire movers to complete the job.

Buying a home is exciting, and although it can be an unimaginably stressful experience, it’s one that I believe we go through for a reason. This new home is where future memories are going to come from, and you don’t get to experience these amazing things, without a little hard work first. Enjoy your new home, and the lessons you learned in obtaining it.