6 Mistakes Veterans Make While Buying A Home
Generally, the home buying process is no easy feat. Potential buyers commonly face obstacles like deciding the house’s location, and some sellers are not transparent with the property’s current value and budget. Once they sign the deal, they might have to deal with structural issues, noisy neighbors, poor access to public transportation, and expensive monthly fees.
Looking for residential property is never a stress-free experience, especially for veterans. Since most of these retired professionals might still be transitioning to civilian life, this endeavor can be challenging. Aside from buying, most of them have to deal with rising home prices, low housing inventory, tedious paperwork, and other challenges.
So if you’re a veteran planning to buy a home, this article provides you with six common mistakes most veterans make while purchasing a house and the best ways to avoid them.
- Ignoring Mortgage
When it’s time to buy a house, most buyers will already decide on applying for an average mortgage. However, some veterans are unaware of the Veterans Affairs (VA) loan, so they don’t know they’re eligible to apply. Instead of having readily available cash for emergencies, they purchase the property in cash.
As a veteran, you must take advantage of the VA loan that can provide you with financial assistance in buying your dream home without a down payment and private mortgage insurance. To avail of this mortgage loan, first, you must fill out an application. After that, you must provide proof you can pay the cost based on your monthly earnings and credit history. Then, validate that you have sufficient money for closing fees.
After applying for a VA loan with Security America Mortgage, you can avoid the possibility of foreclosure and keep the property for an extended period.
- Failing To Shop Around
As a first-time homebuyer, you might be willing to sacrifice your essentials to get the most affordable property in your ideal community. While compromising some house features might be necessary, you shouldn’t do so for essential elements within the home. For instance, if you don’t like sharing walls with noisy neighbors that might affect your sleeping pattern, you shouldn’t purchase the place just because it’s cheaper.
Instead of purchasing the first residential property on your list, you must be open to continue your search. That way, you can prevent yourself from making misinformed decisions you might regret later. To help you shop around, you should visit credible real estate websites and install verified apps that might streamline your house-hunting activity. As you go through this strategy, you might be able to preview a wide selection of properties within your ideal location without visiting them.
- Skipping An Inspection
After looking for a credible mortgage plan, you need to run a thorough home inspection for your ideal house. This activity will help you know the property’s actual condition by discovering life-threatening issues so you can negotiate a price reduction and ask for necessary repairs. Unfortunately, most veterans skip this beneficial process, which might be risky for their safety while paying for an overpriced property.
To avoid these problems, you should seek expert assistance from a local home inspection service provider to inspect all major house systems. This professional can uncover issues in the property’s plumbing, foundation, roof, drainage, and heating systems. After receiving the transparency report of this activity and discovering significant problems, you can either use these insights to negotiate the price or cancel the closing and move on to the next spot on your list.
- Making A Major Loan Before Closing
Once veterans find a perfect property and their pre-closure offer gets accepted by the lender, they often get excited to move in. Because of this excitement, they may jump right into designing their home. They might purchase a new wide-screen TV and invest in top-notch furniture to entice their family members and visitors all before closing the deal. While this equipment might improve their comfortability in the future, it might compromise the property’s closure by not being able to meet necessary lender requirements.
To ensure that you can successfully transfer the title of the house to your name, you must avoid making a significant purchase upon the closure. Doing so will allow you to keep your deal on the safe side by helping you sustain your credit score and make you eligible for them. After closing the property, you can have the freedom to remodel the home based on your taste by making significant loans or saving up.
- Not Seeking Assistance From An Agent
Most veterans fail to seek the expert assistance of an agent because they often believe that finding and buying the best property is easy. Even if they have all the necessary cash to pay for all expenses and move in as quickly as possible, they might overlook underlying issues within the house. As a result, they suffer the long-term consequences of living in a community that doesn’t serve their comfortability while paying for frequent structure repairs.
As a homebuyer, you must consider outsourcing a real estate agent to ensure you’re purchasing the best home deal in the market. This professional understands the primary and most intricate details of the home buying process, saving you from committing costly mistakes. Moreover, this individual may already know the most credible local listings so that they can recommend the best deals in the real estate market.
- Not Saving Up For Upfront And Hidden Costs
After taking advantage of the VA loan, buyers still need to deal with upfront homebuying costs. Unfortunately, most veterans fail to consider the upfront costs and are surprised when the seller asks them for a higher fee. Therefore, you must save enough cash to pay the down payment, mortgage lender costs, homeowners’ insurance, and property taxes.
Aside from upfront fees, you will also need to prepare for costly hidden and surprising costs that would pop up during the closing process. These expenses include government, hazard insurance, appraisal, home inspection, reserves, title, and agent commission. After considering these fees, you have to effectively allocate a budget by asking for assistance from your real estate agent to eliminate the stress from the calculation.
Key Takeaway
As a veteran planning to invest in a residential property, you need to have a seamless homebuying experience while getting the best deals in the market. Thus, you must avoid these six mistakes while looking for a house in your ideal location. Once you prevent these issues, you might be able to find the right home with the features that resonate with your needs.
Francis Price
Francis Price is a real estate broker. He has been in the industry for more than eight years. He also writes blogs to share his expertise in real estate matters. During his free time, Francis enjoys boating with friends.