Real Estate Questions (part 3): How do I get ready to buy a home?

So you want to buy a home in Whatcom County next year. Either you’re renting right now, or you have a home to sell, or you’re moving into the area from somewhere else (welcome!) 

Explore what you’ll be looking for:

If you’re from out of the area and won’t be visiting ahead of time, spend time online getting to know the area a bit. The City of Bellingham has some wonderful neighborhood info resources to help you get a feel for each one, and you can peruse our Living Like a Local and LiveBellinghamNow pages to learn about annual events and meet local business owners and nonprofits in town. 

Think through what sort of home you need. Yard or no yard, close to I-5 or as secluded as possible? This is the part that can be the most fun, and it’s also important to really consider what type of home best fits your personal needs.

Financial preparation:

If you already own a home, you can request a couple of documents to help inform where you stand financially.  Your loan portal or servicer can provide a loan balance (the principal amount you still owe on your home).  We can provide a CMA (home valuation) and a seller net sheet (breakdown of costs associated with selling, and an estimate of the check you’d receive afterwards). These together indicate the equity you have that can be applied to a new home purchase. 

Debt is one of the biggest detriments to being financially prepared to buy a house (and take on more debt haha). Lenders use a debt-to-income ratio as part of the qualification process, and if you already have a car payment, student loans, and credit card debt, there’s a lot less room to work with. 

This is one reason we advise reaching out to education-focused local loan officers very early on - they can help you ascertain which debt to focus on paying down, offer referrals for debt consolidation or other programs, and so on. 

Those same professionals can also offer advice about increasing your credit score, like adding or closing credit cards, reviewing your credit report with you, and more.

Budgeting. Low down payment options and seller-paid closing costs are more in play now than they’ve been for a few years, but with median prices in the $500s and $600s (thousands), saving up a few percent down is often a multi-year endeavor for most of us. There’s no shortcut around this, and so we recommend getting clear (you and any partners or other buyers) on what your short-term and long-term priorities are. 

We’re not financial advisors, just regular Whatcom County residents with our own budgets, payments and upcoming expenses, and so over here at CGNW, we often talk about building an emergency fund buffer, special savings accounts set aside from our regular bank accounts, setting limits on discretionary spending, and other money management fundamentals that have helped each of us who are homeowners achieve that goal.

As usual, we’re a casual, no-judgment bunch around here, and so are the lending professionals we work with. Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions you may have about buying a home; we’d love to take you out for a beer or coffee to chat!

team@cohengroupnw.com | 360.389.3894

By Tiffany Holden. All CGNW blog posts are written by a real person without the help of AI. Cohen Group NW is a team at Muljat Group Realtors in Bellingham, WA