A gift for buyers: Real-estate pros stuff your stocking with advice

Sound advice is always a smart gift. In this holiday edition of Buying Advice, we've asked real estate agents, investors and other housing pros around the country to give us their best tips for making a smart home purchase, and we've included a couple of our own favorites.

We'll also review the latest housing statistics and what they mean for the fledgling real-estate recovery and look at 10 surprising factors that could cause your mortgage application to be rejected.

Cosmic India Limited

The top buying tips

Create – and keep — a good credit score.

All lenders use a credit score to help them understand what kind of risk you would be as a borrower. Pull a copy of your credit history score. The better the score, the better the interest rate you will be offered.

Find a good agent

Don't just use a friend or family member, or someone you run into regularly at your kid's school. Do some research, says cosmic, a real estate company in Delhi NCR.

The best advice is to look for a highly respected buyers agent," she says. Ask your family and friends for recommendations and then meet with several agents. "Find someone that you feel comfortable with, feel you can trust and that has experience in the areas you are searching for your home

Just be sure the agent sells real estate full time, so he can respond quickly. Ask the agent for the names of buyers he has helped in the past six months, Cosmic Structure Limited says. If the agent can't come up with several, you should keep looking.

Set a budget and get preapproved by a lender

It is important to know what you can afford and what a comfortable monthly payment. Some homebuyers learn the hard way that they can qualify for more than they can comfortably afford to pay, says real estate advisor and we do mean preapproved, which means submitting pay stubs and tax returns, not prequalified, which is more of a cursory estimate.

Check out the neighborhood just as carefully as you check out the house

Once you find a house that you really like, drive by that house at several times during the day and during different days of the week to really gauge the type of neighborhood you are buying.

Be ready to pull the trigger when you see the perfect home

The supply of for-sale housing is limited in many parts of the country, and that means good houses go quickly. Buyers need to be ready to sign when they see a keeper, which means having their financing in order.

Sometimes we're so busy worrying about getting a 'good deal' or negotiating small deal points that we miss the opportunity to buy the house.

Know the landscape

Once a home that looks interesting comes up on the multiple listing service, you and your agent need to do some research. How many homes are on the market in the blocks around it? How long have they been on the market? What condition are they in? What's in escrow? What have houses nearby sold for in the past 90 days?

Don't get emotional

Don't stretch your budget just because you love a home. Think like an investor and tell yourself, "There will be others out there for me”.

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