First Step Before Looking – By David DuMont, 01/20/2025
Please watch the video below and take advantage of my 21+ years of real estate experience. You won’t regret it!
Before the word “Buyer” can be applied to you, you are “just looking”. Before you start to “just look”, the #1 most important first step before looking, is to guard your heart(s) and call your banker/mortgage person and get pre-qualified. I know what you’re thinking! You’re thinking “we’re just gonna drive around and have a look. We have no intention to buy today, or even soon.” While that might turn out to be true, the plan can change in the blink of an eye when you set foot in the home you’ve always wanted. I’ve interviewed buyer’s that said they walked into a home with no intention to buy, and said “uh oh!”. They knew within a few minutes that the home they were standing in was the one they wanted. For some buyers the story had a happy ending, but not for all. For some, they gathered the information they needed, price & important details, and decided to move forward. They reached out to a mortgage representative to get qualified and that’s where everything stopped. For one reason or another, it wasn’t going to happen. Sometimes it’s problems with credit that are errors, identity theft, debt-to-income ratio, or just debt payment problems from the past. There are many reasons why a lender won’t lend money. This is where the first step before looking comes in, and should never be skipped. I’ve found that quite often, people that find out they can’t buy “that” house, “the one”, “the house I’ve always wanted”, they stop looking because the disappointment is so great. What usually happens when people make that quick call and get pre-qualified, then go out and casually look but only look at homes within their affordability, is they find something they really like or even love. Then they get serious and put thought into it. They talk, budget, plot and plan. Will this work? Should we do this? Is now a good time in our lives to commit to owning a home? Can we afford this? The beauty is that because they took the right first step before looking, they’re able to make a decision to move forward on something they really care about without having the disappointment of getting their hopes crushed first.
Whether this is your first or 10th article I’ve written that you’ve read, I’m still David DuMont, real estate agent with over 20 years of experience, 17 years in new construction. My goal is now and will always be to help you sell your current home for the most money possible while achieving your most important goals, and/or help you buy the home that best fits your life goals of the time. I am not a salesperson and will never sell you on anything. I don’t call 15 times to get you to do something. As a Realtor, I can only be a co-pilot. Take a minute to read this page with more details on myself as a professional full-time real estate Agent: David DuMont – Top 10 Agents in Tulsa. Call me now at (918)409-5195 and we can talk a little to see if we want to move forward in working together on your real estate goals.
Want me to do a full professional Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) on your home to determine it’s local market value? If yes, please understand that this can sometimes take 2-3 days to complete, as a full CMA is 2-3 hours of research: Yes, please send me a CMA on my home!
