New year, new home!

It's a beautiful, but cold afternoon in Evansville and The Murphy Team is hard at work to start strong in 2015. We enjoyed a wonderful holiday season filled with family, friends and yes, work! In the past week or so, we have helped buyers find their new home, sold a listing, got a new listing, and scheduled a closing for this week. It's been a fabulous start to this new year! 

We want to make sure the next 12 months are as good as the past couple weeks have been. We love our jobs and really feel a responsibility to provide the best customer service, education to our clients, and knowledge of our field. So, in order to help you determine whether you are ready to take the plunge and buy in this new year, we have put together a few tips for you.

1. Build your savings and budget. Make sure you have the money to purchase a new home, even if you'll be doing 100% financing. There are costs associated with buying a new home such as earnest money, an inspection, a down payment, and sometimes closing costs. You want to be prepared for that and still have money left in your budget for the fun things like new furniture and paint.

2. Meet with a loan officer to get pre-approved (if you don't know where to go, call us--we have a list of great options you can look into). Before we start looking for your new dream home, we want to make sure you're able to buy it. When you get pre-approved, you learn exactly what you can afford based on things like your credit score, debt-to-income ratio, and monthly income (it's a detailed process your loan officer can walk you through). You will also find out what types of loans are available to you. Not only do you become educated through this process, you become a strong buyer because you have proof you can purchase your perfect home when we find it.

3. Create a check list. What do you want in a new home? What do you not want? Where do you want to live? Think through what is really important to you in this new house. It's more than how many bedrooms and bathrooms you need; it's about how you and your family use your space. We will discuss this in detail with you but it's great to have a list already started to work with.

4. Call us to set up a meeting. Once you've fine-tuned your finances, met with a loan officer and begun your checklist, it's time to call us! We would love to sit down with you and get started. You can share what you're looking for in a new home and we will go over the buying process and applicable documents so you feel knowledgeable and prepared moving forward. 

5. We start looking! Now the fun begins. We will start searching for homes and working toward finding your favorites to view in person. Your new dream home closer than you think!

Tune in next time for our tips focused on sellers. We have some great ideas to help you get prepared to sell this year.

Stay warm Evansville--if you're creating that checklist this week, you might consider including a fireplace!!