Buying a Home in San Antonio

When it comes to buying your new home in San Antonio, you NEED the help of the experts. The Life in San Antonio Texas Home Group is dedicated to giving you the utmost professional, expert support from start to finish. From the moment we have our first Home Buyer Consultation Call, we will have you're best interest in mind. We are not out for the "quick sale" like other real estate agents out there are but rather, we are focused on making sure that you are in the right position to get the home of your dreams no matter if that's in 2 days, or 2 years from now!

The Home Buying Process itself is simple, yet very involved. Below you'll find the step by step process of exactly what will happen on this journey as we start to look for your new home. Some variations can be slightly different, especially when it comes to buying new construction, but for the most part, this will be the exact steps we'll guide you through. 

Once you are done exploring these details, submit the form below for your 100% Free, Zero Pressure, Home Buyer Consultation Call with someone from the Life in San Antonio Texas Home Group. We absolutely love helping people just like you with this process of finding your next home in San Antonio (or anywhere in the suburbs of our great city) and we can't wait to help you as well. 

STEP #1: Initial Consultation

First and foremost, you'll want to schedule, what we call, an Intitial Consultation. Although we don't make things incredibly formal in this consultation, this is simply a chance for us to get to know each other so that you can share your goals with us and we can answer any questions you may have about the home buying process in San Antonio. Whether you've purchased numerous homes here in Texas before or whether this will be your first home purchase ever, our goal with the Consultation is for us to get a plan in place moving forward where you have all the answers to the questions you currently have and we can set that plan in motion. Whether you need to buy in 2 days or in 2 years, we'd love to meet up with you for the Consultation and you can schedule that HERE or down below.

STEP #2: Establish Financing

After the Initial Consultation, you'll want to work on establishing financing. There's multiple situations that could occur here. If you are currently living in San Antonio and won't have to change jobs, then you can start talking with a lender right away. If you are moving here for the first time and will be transferred with your current job or will need to find a new job, then you'll need to have that lined up before you can formally get your financing. Now, this doesn't mean we can't get the process started before you officially have your formal offer letter but at the very least, you'll need to know how much your income will be here. When it comes to getting a new job and trying to qualify for a mortgage, just know that the job absolutely has to be in the same line of work as what you have been doing so you have the two years of work history. Once your job is lined up, you'll need to talk with a lender and apply. We have a list of some outstanding lenders that we have worked with before and would be happy to share their contact information with you.

STEP #3: Home Search

During the Initial Consultation, we'll talk about exactly what you are looking for in your new house and whether your big move is 2 days or 2 years away, you can start using the Home Search feature of our website to begin to look at homes, save them to your favorites, or even text them over to us so we know exactly what you're looking for when the time comes to get out and start finding that perfect home for you. Once financing is set and you're ready to pull the trigger, we start getting out there and seeing the homes in person.

For those that are local or can schedule a home search trip, we'll schedule plenty of time to look at homes until we can find the perfect one. Usually this involves 2-4 hours or time alloted to look at anywhere from 5-7 homes at the most. We've found that once you hit that 7th house, you are exhausted and have a hard time really differentiating between the homes. But don't worry. Our #1 priority at The Life in San Antonio Texas Home Group is to make sure that you find that home you've been dreaming of and we'll keep looking at homes with you until we do. Once we have spent some time together, we get a pretty good idea of what you want and can start filtering out exactly which homes wouldn't meet your needs and focus on seeing the best of the best until you find the one.

For those that aren't able to see the homes in person, don't stress. We've helped tons of people buy homes sight unseen and we know how to make sure you are 100% comfortable in that situation. What we'll do is make sure that we know your highest priorities in the home during our Consultation. Hopefully, you've been to San Antonio before and know which area you love but if not, we can help you make that decision as well. Once you find a home you love and think could be the one, we'll go see it for you. We can video call you if you'd like but most importantly, we will take a video of the neighborhood on the way to the home and the home itself getting every single inch of it in the video so it's like you are there yourself. With that recording, you can rewatch the video however many times you like rather than just having to remember what it was like from the video call.

STEP #4: Make an Offer

When we've found the one and you're ready to move forward, the next step is to pur our offer together. On new construction homes, this is very simple. New home builders have their own set contract and most of the terms are already set. What we can negotiate with builders is price, closing cost assistance, appliance packages included, etc. What each builder is willing to negotiate on varies but we've worked with every single builder in San Antonio and know exactly what we can and can't negotiate on with each. 

For resale homes, the offer process is much more involved. We will be able to negotiate 17 different terms of the offer that could come in to play on average with even more coming into the picture with more unique properties. Each of these items we'll discuss when you're ready to make the offer and we'll give our expert recommendations on what we believe will be the best course of action to get you the home you love at the right price and for the right terms. We have years and years of real estate negotiation experience and will take every step we can to come to an agreement with the sellers.

STEP #5: Contract to Close

Once the seller has accepted your offer and both you and the sellers have signed and executed the contract, we are officially under contract! Once this occurs, a long series of processes begins. This is where the real work starts for us as your agent. The Contract to Close process is extremely detailed with numerous variables that come into play throughout the process. In summary, the process starts with the Option Period (another word for Inspection Period), repair negotiations (if needed), then followed by ordering your appraisal, having the survey completed, additional inspections done if needed, appraisal negotiations (if needed), providing all lender documentation, finallizing your loan approval, final walkthrough, then finally, closing. And this is just the major items that come up with hundreds of different things that could happen along the way. Throughout this process, we'll be in direct contact with you scheduling and coordinating every step and you will also be in communication with our Transaction Coordinator who adds another set of eyes on the entire process to make sure nothing is missed. We have your back throughout this long process!

STEP #6: Closing Day

After all the terms have been met on the contract and the financing is officially approved, then we are ready to close! Closing Day starts with a final walkthrough to make sure that the sellers left the house in pristine condition for you and all repairs they agreed to make were taken care of. Once we've verified that the house is exactly as you expected it to be, then we head to the Title company for closing. One week prior, we would have scheduled your closing appointment with the Title Officer. The closing appointment will typically take 30-45 minutes with lots of hand cramps and sore fingers after signing so many documents but at the end of it all, you're officially a San Antonio home owner! After signing, though, we do have to wait for the lender to send the funds through. This is usually a short period of time as long as both buyer and seller have signed and once the title company receives the funds, everything is finally official. Welcome Home!