Making the Most of Your First-Time Home Buyer’s Credit
First Time Home Buyer Savings Can Stack-Up with a Little Research
If you’re one of the few who hasn’t heard about the $8,000 first-time home buyer credit – listen up! That’s a fair share of dough for those who qualify, and this week’s blog will give you some tips on how to stretch your homebuying dollars even further. When looking for your first home, it’s hard to not think of that purchase as a significant investment. While InvestorLoft traditionally focuses on the needs of the investment buyer, we’re here to tell you that there are some handy tools (on both our site and others) that can help you make that $8,000 credit stretch even further.
So first-time home buyers: this list is for you!
Ways to Maximize Your First-Time Home Buyer Credit
- Shop for Discounts – Everyone’s talking about the abundance of foreclosures on the market – so there MUST be deals to be had, right? Absolutely right. Using InvestorLoft’s PropScout search engine, you can actually search for properties by discount to market value and estimated equity! Not only that, but Forbes Real Estate frequently issues their Luxury Housing Index numbers weekly and MSNBC.com publishes up-to-date housing information (like cities with the highest foreclosure rates and info on the 10 priciest cities for owning a home). A little research lends to a keen eye for discounts!
- Keep an eye on Craigslist! Real estate listings don’t just come in the classifieds of your local paper or online. While the risk runs high for potential scams, a trained eye will let you know if you’re looking at a potentially good deal. You can take the information from the listing you find and then research similar properties in the area or (preferably) just hand the info over to your chosen real estate professional and let them do the legwork for you. Think outside the MLS and let your Realtor help you!
- Know Your Numbers - Sites like Bankrate.com are hugely useful for financial research. They’re a long-standing source of data for up-to-date mortgage rates AND the bank providing them. Pre-approval for a mortgage gives you eve more negotiating power when you need to act fast on a hot deal.
- Set Up New Property Alerts – Searching every day for the home of your dreams can be cumbersome. On sites like InvestorLoft, you can save searches and have new results emailed when they post to the system! It’s kind of like a concierge for your home buying needs (but there’s no obligatory $20 tip required). Does the site you’re using to search email you targeted results or just random emails of new listings? Your time is valuable – make it count with targeted searching!
- Leverage Professional Assistance – You might be the king or queen of finding aything you want online, but odds are, you’re going to use a Realtor to buy your home. There are thousands of experienced professionals ready and waiting to help you do the legwork for your new home search. Search for property is all they do, each and every day – chances are that they know a few inside tips about the area in which you’re looking to buy and may even hear about listings before you can find them online. Find a real estate pro you trust and let them help with the heavy lifting!
Tags: 8000 credit, discount real estate, first time home buyer, first time home buyer credit, first time home buyers, Investment Property, Real Estate Investment
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April 30th, 2009 at 7:51 am
[...] Making the Most of Your First Time Home Buyer’s Credit (InvestorLoft.com) An invaluable resource, this article provides some excellent tips for how buyers can make the most of the $8,000 first time home buyer credit. How to identify discounts, search an analysis tools, mortgage rate resources and more. [...]