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Buying your first home is a significant life event, and right now the national experts say it’s more difficult than ever to achieve that dream. However, we shouldn’t let that deter us from helping this eager group. After all, no matter what happens in the coming months, people will buy – and sell – houses, and we need to be there for all our customers.     

While we’ve given plenty of advice to this demographic before, we’re always ready to assist this group, and anyone else looking to buy or sell a property in one of our great communities. The bottom line is no matter how challenging the journey is, it is our responsibility to keep first-time homebuyers calm and grounded in reality. This is sometimes easier said than done, but here are some more tips we found that we wanted to pass along to our fellow real estate professionals and prospective buyers alike.  

• Start by setting expectations. With HGTV and other real estate related TV programs, people will often have unrealistic expectations of what is possible, especially if they have never gone through the homebuying process before. That’s where a good REALTOR®, loan officer, and yes, title agent comes in. Talk about what the search process is like and what to expect when submitting an offer. Separate fact from fiction in this ever-changing market. With a more realistic view of how things work, there will be much less disappointment and more success.
• Be available for them. This means whenever they find a listing while scrolling Zillow, help them make that connection, or when they are driving home from work and “Our House” by Crosby, Stills and Nash comes on the radio, help them calm down when they are worried they won’t find THE ONE. The more you can talk them through the process and their emotions, the better the experience will be for all involved.
• Give the best advice that you can give. There is so much that a first-time homebuyer just doesn’t know so make their lives easier. This could be a simple heads up on what to do at the closing all the way to providing the information regarding the importance of title insurance. (If you need help with the latter, we’ve got you!)
• Warn them about wire fraud. Yes, we just talked about this, but experts say first-time homeowners are especially susceptible to falling for wire fraud scams. Let’s work together to make sure that doesn’t happen. 

Owning a home is an amazing milestone, but that first buying experience can be rough at best. What all first-time homebuyers need is a real estate professional who can take control and smooth out those rough edges. And to all the prospective homebuyers from this group, a good REALTOR® is truly worth it – in fact 86 percent of all buyers used a buyer’s agent last year, and almost 9 out of 10 of them reported a positive experience doing so. 

Each time we work with a first-time homeowner, it’s a moment for us and everyone else around the closing table! Contact us today.