Buying a Home

If you're in the market to buy a home, The Bill Heenan Team is the best online resource to guide you through the process.  Our property search is connected to the same MLS database used by realtors.  It provides the most up to date and accurate property information available, (active, under contract, and sold).   Many of the national real estate sites are NOT connected to the MLS and often contain outdated and inaccurate information.

You want to purchase your first home, townhouse or condo.  The first step is to make a list of what is important to you in a property.  What are you looking for?  What is important to you?  Is it proximity to work, the beach, family?  Do you want a house or condo?  Have you looked at the financials and calculated what you can comfortably afford?

Once you have figured out what you want, made a list of features you want and calculated what your comfortable payment amount is then it is time to proceed.  Here is what needs to happen next.

Step One.  Get Pre-Qualified

If you're like most home buyers, you will be financing some portion of your home purchase.  A mortgage pre-qualification is an important step early in the home buying process. The pre-qualification is completed by a mortgage professional. The loan officer will verify your income and check your credit history. Going through the pre-qualification process will also help you understand what the closing costs will be and how much your monthly payment would be.  A pre-qualification is critical to have in hand prior to submitting an offer.

We work with a team of highly qualified lenders. We would be happy to connect you with someone who can help you either obtain a pre-qualification or help you to better understand what is involved with the financing process.

Step 2.  Hire an experienced  (full time) real estate agent

In CT, the seller pays the commission for both the seller’s agent and the buyer’s agent.  You typically don’t have to pay a thing for an agent.  So hire one and let them do the work for you and guide you through the process.  Make sure that the agent is representing you.  The way you do that is ask.  An experienced agent can make the experience a lot more pleasurable and can potentially save you thousands of dollars.  

Step 3. Choosing a Property

Now that you know what you want to buy, got pre-qualified and hired an agent, next is choosing the property. Your agent will send you a list of properties to look through online.  Make a list of the ones you love. Let the agent know what you like and more importantly, what you don’t like about the properties. The more information you give the agent, the better they can fine tune the search and find you the best fit properties to view.

Once you view them and pick out what you like, then the agent can go to work to help you make the best offer and save you the most amount of money. We have years of experience writing and evaluating offers. This expertise enables you to present a strong offer while not paying "too much".  In a particularly hot market you may not have a lot of time to decide on a home, so it's important to have an agent who is very responsive and available.  We use the latest technology for creating documents and obtaining e-Signatures. 

Summary

Wouldn't it be great if buying a home were as simple as it is in a game of Monopoly? All you would have to do it find the desired neighborhood,  hand the banker a few bucks, and BAM you have your house!  Of course 'real life' is a bit more complicated than that, but we are here and ready to help you through this!  We invite you to begin your home search HERE on our top-rated site, and contact us with any questions you may have.  

Download our Buyer Guide for some great information!