First-time buyers almost always start in the same place: scrolling listings.
It is the fun part, so I understand it. But it is the fourth or fifth step, and starting there is how people fall in love with a house they cannot write a competitive offer on. These are the seven questions to get answered first.
1. What can I actually borrow, and what do I actually want to spend?
Those are two different numbers, and the second one is smaller.
A lender will tell you the maximum they will approve. That number is calculated from your income and debts. It knows nothing about your life — that you want to keep traveling, that a kid is coming, that your car is eight years old.
Get the maximum from the lender, then set your own ceiling below it and hold to it. Every buyer who tells me “we can stretch” ends up stretching.
2. Pre-qualified or pre-approved?
These get used interchangeably and they are not the same. A pre-qualification is an estimate based on what you told the lender. A pre-approval means the lender has actually looked at your documents.
In a competitive situation, a pre-qualification is close to worthless. Get the pre-approval. Ask your lender directly which one they are giving you, because the letter does not always say plainly.
3. What do I need beyond the down payment?
The down payment is the number everyone plans for. The ones that surprise people are closing costs, the appraisal, the inspection, the earnest money, and the cash you need on day one for the things a house immediately requires — a lawn mower, a snow shovel, curtains, a fridge if the seller takes theirs.
Ask your lender for a written estimate of total cash to close, not just the down payment. And ask what down payment assistance you might qualify for, because programs exist and eligibility depends on details a lender can check and I cannot.
4. How long am I actually going to live here?
Buying and then selling in under a couple of years is expensive. You pay to get in and you pay to get out, and a short window may not give the home enough time to cover both.
If the honest answer is “we are not sure”, that should push you toward a house that is easier to resell — a common floor plan, a normal lot, a location people want — over the unusual one that you personally love. The quirky house is a better buy when you are staying a long time.
5. What am I not willing to compromise on?
Write down three things. Not ten. Three.
Commute, school boundary, number of bedrooms, a yard, a garage, single level. Everything past three becomes a wish, and treating a wish like a requirement is how buyers tour forty houses and write zero offers.
The three that are real should be genuinely non-negotiable, and everything else should be openly tradeable. That distinction is what makes a decision possible when you are standing in a house you half-like.
6. What does my offer look like besides the price?
New buyers assume the highest number wins. Often it does not.
A seller is weighing certainty as much as price: how solid your financing is, how long you need to close, whether your timeline matches theirs, how much earnest money you are putting up, and what you are asking them to fix. Two offers at the same price are not the same offer.
This is where having someone who has written a lot of them matters. There are ways to make an offer stronger that do not cost you more money, and there are ways to make it weaker that you would not see coming.
7. What happens after the inspection?
The inspection is not pass/fail. It produces a list, and the list will have things on it, because every house does — including new ones.
The work is separating the three categories: things that are genuinely disqualifying, things worth asking the seller to address, and things that are just what owning a house is. Asking a seller to fix everything on the list is how buyers lose a house they wanted over items they would have shrugged at a month later.
Where to start
If you can only do one thing this week, talk to a lender and get the real pre-approval. Everything else — Centerville, Bountiful, Woods Cross, what you can compete for, what to write — gets easier once that number is real instead of estimated.
Then call me at (801) 906-3657. First-time buyers get the most out of the free part of this, which is the conversation before you have committed to anything. The first-time homebuyer page covers how I work through it, and buying a home covers the rest of what I do on the buy side.
No question is too basic. I have answered all of them, and the ones people are embarrassed to ask are usually the ones that matter most.