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How to Search For the Home You Want There isn't a real estate professional working in the Atlanta area that would disagree with the following statement:" This is probably this the best in our entire lifetime to be buying a home". Interest rates and home prices are low, and there is an incredible inventory of properties available. With so many properties on the market, how do you determine which houses you should be looking for? First off, you need to determine what your needs are. How many bedrooms does the house need to have? Do you need to live on the water? Does the house need to have a big back yard? Does the house need to be in a desirable school district? Can you live in a fixer-upper to save a few bucks? Create a list of the amenities you need in order to be comfortable. You can find a new house checklist to help guide you through this process in this section of the web site. Secondly, you need to figure out how much you can afford. It doesn't make sense to look at houses priced in the $500,000 range if you can only afford houses in the low $200s. Talk to at least two or three mortgage originators to determine how much you can afford to spend. The pre-qualification letter will expedite the process once you get to the stage where you make an offer. One informal rule of thumb is that the most you can afford is 2.5 times your annual salary. If you and your spouse are making $60,000 a year combined, then you can afford a mortgage no larger than $150,000. You can get an idea of how much house you can afford by reading this article located within this website. Now, combine what you can afford or are willing to spend with the features you find most desirable. You are now ready to go house hunting! Call us to help you find that perfect house, 404-850-7932.
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