First-time buyer
Your first home, explained.
What it costs each month, what you need at closing, what the financing options actually mean and what to verify before you make an offer.
- Get financially ready
- Get pre-approved
- Build the search
- Tour homes
- Analyze the property
- Make an offer
- Inspection and appraisal
- Close
Learn
How this decision actually works
Buying a first home is eight steps, and most surprises come from doing them out of order.
01 · Prepare
Get financially ready and pre-approved
Savings, credit and stable income decide what a lender will do. A pre-approval is a lender's written position — it is not the same as an affordability estimate.
- Assumed
- Any affordability figure produced before a lender reviews your file.
02 · Search
Build the search and tour homes
A defined search — area, price, condition tolerance and commute — finds the right home faster than browsing everything.
- Verified
- Listing facts, taxes and assessment for each home you tour.
03 · Analyze
Analyze the specific property
Monthly cost, cash to close and the condition picture are worked out for that address before an offer is written.
- Assumed
- Insurance, maintenance and HOA figures until quotes and documents arrive.
04 · Offer
Make the offer
Price, contingencies, deposit and timeline are one package. The contingencies are what protect you if something is wrong.
05 · Verify and close
Inspection, appraisal and closing
Inspection tells you the condition, the appraisal tells the lender the value, and the closing disclosure gives the final cash figure.
- Unknown
- Condition and value until the inspection and appraisal are complete.
Find
Find the property
Set up a search you can actually live with, then bring any address you are serious about into the workspace.
- Search by total monthly cost, not by price alone — taxes vary enormously between towns.
- Save the homes you tour so the comparison is a record rather than a memory.
- Ask for the seller's disclosure and the tax bill early on any home you like.
Already have an address? Enter it in the workspace and every figure below is calculated for that property.
Analyze
What the workspace calculates
The first-home workspace runs the home-purchase engine. It produces a scenario, not a lender approval.
- Affordability as a scenario, not a lender approval
- Estimated monthly ownership cost
- Cash to close
- Down-payment scenarios
- Taxes, insurance and HOA assumptions
- Financing comparison — Conventional, FHA and VA where applicable
- Property condition and documents
- What to verify before an offer
Only a lender can tell you what you qualify for. Everything here is planning.
Open the first-home workspaceVerify
What has to be established
Before you write an offer, this is what should be established rather than assumed.
- Verified
Supported by an identified source and reviewed where review is required.
- Assumed
A preset, user-entered or analyst-entered figure that is not independently established.
- Unknown
Missing, contradictory, stale or not yet established.
- Property taxesFrom the municipal tax record for that parcel.Verified
- Homeowners insuranceEstimated until a carrier quotes the specific home.Assumed
- Maintenance and HOAModelled until the budget, dues and rules are produced.Assumed
- Seller disclosureRequested from the listing side.Unknown
- Inspection findingsEstablished after the inspection, not before.Unknown
- Loan termsSet by your lender in writing.Unknown
- An affordability figure is a scenario. Pre-approval comes from a lender reviewing your file.
- Nothing here is a loan offer, a rate lock or a statement that you qualify.
Work with Scott
Technology organizes the evidence. Scott reviews the decision.
A licensed real-estate professional reads the property with you, tells you what is missing and what he would do next.
Questions stay attached to your Property Intelligence™ and Buyer Journey.