First Time Home Buyer Guide: 6 Tips to Keep up Your Sleeve

Buying your first home is among the biggest milestones you have to cross in life. At some point, you will become a first time home buyer, whether you’re making this expensive purchase for residence or investment. In either case, you will have to learn the ABC’s of the process that can otherwise set you up for an overpriced mistake. 

There’s no wonder buying your first home carries all this air of responsibility, where if you finish the process successfully, it’s considered an achievement. Here’s how you as a first time home buyer can make the best out of this experience. Our real estate consultants at Al Huda put together this guide to allow you to safely navigate the process. 

First Time Home Buyer Guide

Audit Your Finances 

Not exactly the most entertaining of chores, but running and audit for your finances is the key to a successful first time home buyer process. It’s important that you understand the magnitude of the payment and the expenses that tail it. Dedicate some time in the coming weeks to examining your finances.Make sure you don’t do this on a whim and overlook any aspect of your finances. 

Gather all the bills and evaluate your financial behavior. Consider how you have been spending money in the last period and how this can change in the period following your house purchase. 

Ideally, this should give you a clear understanding of your ability to save as well as help you envision how well you can afford the first months of being a first time home buyer. If you find that your financial habits are on point, then weigh out your savings after buying a house and check if you can afford it. 

Otherwise, if you find that you’re splurging every now and then reform how you can use these extra bills and funds in the future. Always know that auditing your finances is your best friend as a first time home buyer. It puts things into perspective and allows you to fathom the extent of the purchase before you venture ahead. 

Have an Emergency Fund

This is a rule of thumb as a first time home buyer. You cannot enter the process if you haven’t set at least six months’ worth of expenses aside before your purchase. Buying a house involves a down payment that can range between 25% to 50% in addition to closing fees. As for the remaining payment, you get to cover the fees in flexible installment plans.

It’ll only hit you once the money is out of your bank account when your payment is over. In addition to putting money aside in cash for your expenses in the next half-year, you need to have an emergency fund as well. You need to have a backup if anything goes wrong during your post-purchase period. 

Do You Need a Mortgage?

If you’re a first time home buyer, you may be unfamiliar with property-buying terms such as a mortgage. What is a mortgage? And how does it differ from a loan?

In a mortgage, otherwise referred to as a secured loan, the collateral is your property. The lender will give you a set amount of money, and on the occasion, you fail to make your repayment, the lender can take possession of your property. In a loan, the collateral would be you where you can face legal consequences upon failing to meet the payment plan. Whether you need a mortgage or not filters down on how much of the homeownership process you can cover as well as your income. If you don’t have the money for a down payment or the remaining expenses; then you should consider getting a mortgage. 

Tips for applying for a mortgage: 

• Start your application before setting on a house. You need to know how much you can get beforehand, therefore to avoid any disappointments start browsing your options after getting approved.
• To get accepted, make sure your profile looks stable. A common first-time home buyer mistake is closing all your debts right before applying for a mortgage. This will make your profile look very unstable and is a mistake to avoid. 
• Make sure you give your poor spending habits some redefinition at least the year before applying for a mortgage. Splurging and a lack of financial supervision will just present your profile with numerous red flags likely to get your application denied for a mortgage specially if you’re a first time home buyer. 
• Don’t make any spontaneous purchases, for instance buying a car right before applying for a mortgage. You need to have enough in your balance to appear like a trustworthy candidate for a mortgage. 

The Type of Property You Want to Buy

Being a first time home buyer is both overwhelming and exciting. 40% of home buyers label the process as extremely exhausting.  

These emotions can sometimes either over glamorize mediocre property offers or deglamorize good opportunities for property. 

You can hate a perfect home for lousy interior design that you can layer switch up and bargain for a wrong apartment because the paint job is spot on.

 Before getting swamped up in the emotional roller coaster of being a first time home buyer, don’t look at options unless you have figured out what you want. 

Browsing options can influence your decision making for better or worse. But because buying your first home is an extremely big move so make sure you’re clear minded when doing this. 

One way to make sure nothing impacts your judgment is to set your home expectations before touring houses. 

Ask yourself these questions: 

• What type of neighborhoods do you want to live in? 
• Do you care for the transport network in the area? 
• How many rooms are you looking for? 
• For how long are you willing to stay in your new home? 

All these questions will help you make the most suitable decision based on your future vision.

Who to Consult? 

After doing the basic math for your finances and figuring out what you want you can consult a real estate agent. 

First time home buyer or not, real estate agents will give you financing devices and help you find housing opportunities based on your vision and plans. 

That being said, you must hold on to what you want and keep tunnel vision on it before losing track of what you want. 

Real estate agents are there to help you. By extension, they’re  not there to know exactly what you want. But it’s their job to show you offers that could be different to what you had requested to help you expand out your options. Take it slow and ask as many questions as you want. 

Hire Professional Home Inspectors 

Lastly, it’s likely that  you will have to hire an inspection professional to evaluate your new home. There tends to be far more problems than meets the eye and its best to be upfront about them than get sucked into them. 

Remember fat fixing these problems will involve money and fresh out of a big purchase as a first time home buyer, this can be a financial abyss. 

Home inspection professionals will perhaps find more faults than is necessary, after all they’re paid to find mistakes; so you shouldn’t go by the book for every issue or fault they find. 

You can cut the long story short by asking them directly if they think the property in question is good to purchase or not. 

First Time Home Buyer in Turkey 

 Most first time home buyers in Turkey aren’t first time home buyers in general. But if you are, then it depends on whether you’re dedicating the property for residence or want to invest. 

If for either, the current Turkish lira fluctuation against the US dollar makes it perfect for foreign investment. Prices are considerably cheap that many first time home buyers can overlook the mortgage process entirely. 

But if you still need a mortgage then banks in Turkey can give foreigners up to 75% mortgage; how much you can get depends likewise on your income, your expenses, and spending habits. 

Don’t buy your first home in Turkey for residence unless you have lived in the country and can make income in it. Turkey is pictured as an extremely cheap country which it is, but that doesn’t govern reckless behavior. 

If you’re a first time home buyer and you want to make your first purchase in Turkey for investment purposes; while it’s not entirely recommended playing it safe and slow is the best approach in this scenario. Check out the pros and cons of investment in Turkey beforehand. 

If you're a first time home buyer overseas, Turkey is a great country to venture in. You can have numerous secure investment opportunities and dreamy options for residence. 

Contact our real estate consultants at Al Huda for free online consultation.