How to Buy a Home: For Women
This article is only for women … so men please walk away from the computer now….
OK ladies are we alone yet? Good. So I will admit a few things to you. Maybe you gals are smarter than us, and perhaps you do mature a little faster. Maybe you do make meticulous plans for the purchase of your new home and perhaps your “significant other” is a clueless bag of meat walking around saying “I don’t know, what do you think?” But we definitely bench press more than you, so I think that just about makes us even.
We are not however even when it comes to purchasing a new home. Everybody knows that the woman makes the home purchasing decision (with few notable exceptions). You gals are the ones combing the internet home listings at 2:00AM. You show up at the open houses a year before you are ready to actually purchase a house. (Grrrrrr… that is frustrating by the way.) You are the ones planning out what wall colors will match your bedroom and living room furniture. You are even starting to outnumber the men at Home Depot!!! So since you have become the Sadie Hawkins of home buying, I would like to offer you some tips to help make it a pleasurable run.
Please make sure that your man thinks that the decision was his. Yes, I know some of you are masters of this game already. But for those of you that are not, let me school you. If your man thinks you are making all the purchasing decisions, then he will thwart your every move. He really only cares about a few things anyway; where the television will go, where the car will go, and how much this will cost him. So ask him what he wants and make sure he thinks he is getting it. Lots of kisses work and make sure you tell him how smart he is. We love that!
Prioritize your search. I don’t even know you, but I already know what you are looking for. Let me guess. You want a home in a great neighborhood. It’s got to have enough bedrooms for the family plus an extra room would be nice. It’s got to have somewhere to park your car. You must be in a great school district. You need a great view with updated kitchen and bathrooms and enough closet space. Oh… and you want it for the price of a foreclosure you saw on TV. Am I close? You can get all this, but probably not for the price you want, so prioritize.
Finally, don’t go out until you are really ready. Ready means you have a pre-approval from a real lender. (not Joe-Shmo Financial) Ready means you have real down payment money sitting in a real bank account. Ready means you have already walked through the neighborhood you are considering buying into. Do not wait for your realtor to take you there. You go first. Ready means that you don’t have another house to sell or a lease to break to buy this home.
As I always tell husbands, “Happy Wife, Happy Life”, so… what was that?... Shhhhh… what’s his name is coming back. Um...Err... like I was saying, Westchester has some great homes for couples like yourselves. I would love to help you. ;)
To find wonderful Westchester single family homes, condos and coops… AskRey.