First-time homebuyers, here are six tips from Houston real estate professionals - Houston Chronicle

Buying a house is the biggest, and often most important, financial decision of your life.

So you want to make sure you nail every step along the way, right?

“Open House” is the Houston Chronicle’s Houston How To series on homebuying for first timers. These six real estate professionals work with new homebuyers, and they have tips for you about how to make the homebuying process smoother.

Mark Dimas, broker/owner at Mark Dimas Properties

“One of the biggest fears is choosing the wrong home. It’s like a fear of missing out, FOMO — they see a house they really like but they wonder if there’s another one out there. You don’t want to lose out by not making a decision. There are (low interest) rates, prices or that perfect house that was really good for you, (but) it’s still a really competitive market. You see a lot of multiple offers in those price points.”

Eric Fontanot, president at Patten Title

“The one thing that always jumps out to me is to always, always, always get a new survey when you’re buying a new piece of property. It’s a critically important aspect to the home buying process. It’s important to know where the land is, where the boundaries are, where the land is situated, where the house is situated.”

Jennifer Hughes Hernandez, senior loan officer at Legacy Mutual

“A misconception about pre-approval is that you can just do credit only and get a pre-approval. That’s not a pre-approval. A pre-approval is when you give someone your paperwork — your taxes, pay stubs, W-2s. So if a company says that they’re pre-approving you yet they reviewed none of your documentation...online companies are notorious for this, you push a button and you’re approved. There’s been no human revision of your documents, and that should be worrisome because it could be potential surprises down the line.”

Omar Enriquez, affordable housing manager at Amegy Bank

“You definitely want to be able to consult and advise a potential borrower with the actual facts from a credit report. Customers ask, ‘If I inquire about my credit, is it going to bring down my points?’ The credit system does allow one, two, even three inquiries to be able to actually compare lenders. The idea that they’re going to suffer creditwise each time we inquire is not accurate. We don’t want to go to every bank in town, but advise if you’re going to do that, do it with a limited number.”

Chad Helmcamp, president at BWC Lending

“The rule of thumb is two months of bank statements, two consecutive paystubs in a month and two years of tax returns. We get a lot of self-employed people coming in who don’t have that together or write off too much on their tax returns that make it challenging to qualify.”

Mike Spear, Realtor at Martha Turner Sotheby’s International Realty

“When they come in and they go I’ve been looking for a year, two years — the biggest red flag is if they’re just very indecisive. You’re having a hard time getting them to go to the lender to go ahead and get pre-approved and it’s like, OK, maybe you’re not ready to buy. … Sometimes you just got to get in there and dig and ask what’s your motive here and why do you need to buy?”

gwendolyn.wu@chron.com

Twitter: @gwendolynawu

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First-time homebuyers, here are six tips from Houston real estate professionals - Houston Chronicle
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