The Home Buying Process

There are, of course, whole libraries of books on the home buying process that deal with many of these same issues in much more extensive formats. On the web, you'll find a simple but very good tutorial on the home buying process on the website of "Freddie Mac", one of the primary sources of mortgage loan funds in the United States. You'll also find information in the Buyer's Corner section of the International Real Estate Directory. Our coverage supplements these sources by focusing on how the process typically plays out in the current housing market. In this section, we attempt to describe:

   These are the key stages of the home buying process

It is important to remember that there are vast differences in real estate practices across the country. There are some areas of the country that don't have the official marketing systems (Realtor databases of homes for sale) that are so important in how homes are marketed. The processes involved in marketing and closing real estate sales (and loans) in other states are significantly different from those involved in here -- and are a constant source of confusion to buyers from out of state. In some areas of the country, the state requires that the buyer and seller have attorneys to represent them at key points in the process. In others, attorneys often don't play any role at all. And of course, the dynamics of the negotiation process will vary dramatically depending on whether you're working in a "buyer's market" or "seller's market." To sum this up, buyers who have purchased homes in other states, or who have read descriptions of the home buying process as it occurs in other areas, are often more confused by the process as it occurs in our area than they would be if they came into the process with little or no knowledge of real estate practices. Our goal in this section is to give you a firm foundation for beginning your home search.