Don’t Be a Statistic: 5 of the Most Common First-Time Home Buyer Regrets

First-time home buyers have a lot in common when they’re out house hunting. They tend to quickly fall in love with a home, and get their emotions all caught up. They become overwhelmed and feel defeated when they lose out on a bidding war.

They also make a lot of mistakes. Here are 5 of the most common rookie blunders first-time home buyers make that they quickly regret.

1. Skipping the Mortgage Pre-Approval

Don’t start looking in neighborhoods for homes that are way out of your budget. You’ll be sorely disappointed if you fall in love with a house, only to find out you can’t afford it. The best way to get an accurate picture of how much you can feasibly spend on a house is to get pre-approved for a mortgage, long before you even start pounding the pavement.

If you don’t, not only will you be wasting your time, but you’ll be wasting the seller’s time too.

Of course, a mortgage pre-approval doesn’t necessarily guarantee that a loan is a sure thing, but it’s still a great way to help you narrow your home search, and speed up the purchase agreement process after finding the perfect property.

2. Being Way Too Picky

It’s definitely important to make a wish list of all the features in a home that are ideal for you. After all, a home purchase is pretty much the biggest expenditure you’ll ever make, so you want to make sure you get something you want. But being so inflexible that you refuse to settle for anything that doesn’t have 100% of the characteristics you listed is going to get you nowhere. Sometimes a little compromising is necessary.

Unless you have millions of dollars to spend, house hunters on a budget will have to make a few trade-offs. You might have to accept the outdated decor, make a few cosmetic repairs, or even forego the home office to finally settle on a house. Being unwilling to compromise may have you losing out on a property that you eventually realize could have been the right one.

3. Compromising on the Important Things 

While being too picky has its downfalls, the opposite is also true. While it’s realistic to think that some level of compromising is necessary in order to afford your first home, you also shouldn’t make a compromise that you’ll regret shortly after moving in.

Don’t buy a 2-bedroom house when you know that you’ll soon need at least three or four to accommodate a growing family. In much the same way, don’t buy a bachelor condo unit just because the price tag is a lot cheaper than a house, especially when you know how much you despise taking an elevator to get in and of the building. Compromising is good, but don’t skip the things that are super important to you.

4. Foregoing the Home Inspection

As excited as you might be to put your name on title and start moving your furniture in, you need to know what shape the place is in first. The last thing you want to invest in is a money pit that will do nothing but eat up your funds to fix huge deficiencies that you didn’t know about before signing the offer. Including a home inspection clause in your purchase agreement will give you the opportunity to make sure the house is in solid shape before you get stuck in a financial disaster.

Approximately 10% of home buyers don’t have their new homes inspected before sealing the deal in hopes of cutting costs. But imagine having to spend thousands of dollars repairing a leaky rook or cracked foundation, instead of just fronting the much smaller $450 fee for the home inspection?

5. Not Using a Real Estate Agent

One of the biggest mistakes home buyers make is not using the services of a realtor. Buying a home requires a bunch of disclosure forms, inspection reports, mortgage documents, insurance policies, and other complex and in-depth paperwork that can be confusing for the average person. It involves know-how about what a fair purchase price is for a certain home in a specific neighborhood. The process also requires a keen eye for potential problems in the property, as well as negotiating power to get the purchase price as low as possible.

Having a licensed real estate agent on your side will help you in all of these areas, and more. Failure to use a realtor can put you in a position to make a lot of costly mistakes.

The Bottom Line

Many first-time home buyer mistakes can be avoided with the help of an experienced real estate agent in your corner. Listen to their advice, and take the time necessary to think about all the aspects of a potential home you’re thinking of putting an offer on.