The Stress and Anxiety of House Shopping

Have you ever had a moment where you realized you weren't stressed? Anytime when you can remember not having a care in the world? If so I would bet you haven't bought a house recently. My Fiancee and I just finalized our purchase agreement this weekend and are moving into the closing stages of house buying. You would think finding a house was easy, I mean really, how hard can it be? When you are making an investment of this magnitude and are going to be paying for it for the next 20-30 years, you want to make sure it is perfect. Not only do I have to love the house, but she does too, and if that doesn't complicate things enough, we are in a sellers market, which means houses are not posted for sale for long before there are pending offers on them.

There is a long list of things that a buyer has to do in order to complete the process of buying a house. These typically happen in a similar order, but some things can vary based on the scenario. This article helped us figure out a few things to consider while shopping. I wish we would have found it sooner since we made the second mistake on the list "looking for a home first and a loan later." Typically you would start with establishing your budget and finding a lender. Once you have a lender they will pre-approve you for a loan amount. Then you would want to find a real estate agent, if you don't have one already. Try and find one you trust, I know we will be sticking with ours as long as we can. It helps if you nail down an area or two that you want to live in or can afford to live in and then it's a waiting game. You will know when the perfect house comes around, because it hits you like a brick wall. We knew because as we were touring houses we would spend somewhere between five and ten minutes in a house, but when we found ours we didn't want to leave. We kept talking about what we liked about it and started imagining what we would do to make it ours before we even put an offer on it. Once we put an offer in writing we had the inspection which prompted some negotiation. After the final purchase price and terms are agreed upon it is time to go back to the bank for the appraisal and to finalize the mortgage. Then comes closing, where everything comes together and the title swap happens.

If that doesn't have your heart racing and palms sweating, living through it sure will. When it is all said and done, you are not completely signing your life away, you can always go through the whole process again and sell your house if your heart desires.