Top 5 home buying tips in Jacksonville, NC

If you have been searching for a home for sale in Jacksonville, North Carolina, but has struck out. You are going to want to hear these top 5 tips to buying a home in Jacksonville, NC. Whether you are looking for a doublebungalow, single family home, apartment or condo, these tips will work on any of these properties.

Tip #5: Keep Your Money Where It Is

It is not a savvy homebuyer’s move to start moving finances around or buying big ticket items, three to six months before you plan to move. If you are wanting to buy a new car or take out credit cards, you might want to do that a year before you plan to buy a new home, or after you have secured the home loan and are in the new house. Doing this in reverse order can hinder your chances of a home lender being able to locate a loan for you.

Tip #4: Get Pre-Approved for Your Home Loan

Notice we said "pre-approved" and not "pre-qualified." Truth be told, it doesn’t take a whole lot to get pre-qualified when you are searching for homes for sale in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Just a heartbeat and a job will do. However, it takes much more to get pre-approved for a mortgage. This will mean that an actual lender has read through all your financials and has made a determination on how much the numbers say you can afford to pay each month. In addition, getting pre-approved saves tons of time in the end. It gives you a much better idea of how much house you can actually afford, so you and your family aren’t wasting time looking at houses in North Carolina that out far out of the family’s monthly budget.

Tip #3: Avoid a Border Dispute

To save you and your new neighbors from fighting down the line, it’s imperative that you get a survey completed on your house and the entire lot. It’s important that you and your neighbor both know which of you REALLY own that little rock bed/garden space that lies in the middle of both of yourlots.

Tip # 2: Don’t Try to Time the Market

If you aren’t a certified, trained and experienced realtor, it is not wise to try and "time the market." It is not an exact science and even realtors find it nearly impossible to try and time. So when is the best time to buy a house? The best time to buy a house is when you find your "dream home" that you can afford, and it’s available. If you insist and want to wait the "perfect time" you will be waiting for a long time and will miss out on some amazing and affordable homes for sale in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

Tip #1: Stalk the Neighborhood

After you THINK you may have found your perfect home, don’t buy it just yet. You MUST make a drop into the neighborhood during the morning, afternoon and evening hours of the day to REALLY see what kind of neighborhood you are potentially going to be moving into.Many new homeowners thought they had the perfect home in the perfect neighborhood, only to find out they moved 1 block from an elementary school. They soon find out that each morning during the school year, their street is so jammed packed with parents parking and dropping off their kids,that it is hard to even make way to the entrance of their ownstreet. Yikes!

Also, make sure you drive the route from the potential new home to your job and see if you could handle the commute plus 20-40 extra minutes for traffic.In addition, drive around the neighborhood and find the grocery store, gas station and the nearest shopping center. If they are super far away, you will need to evaluate if you can handle that and make a decision.Lastly, on the lines of this same tip, check the school district your potential house is in. If you do not have kids, this doesn’t even matter, we are asking you to do this to save cash. If the potential home is in a "bad school district" opposed to a "good school district" this can affect the value of the home by 20 percent on average.