Common Home-Buying Obstacles & How to Overcome Them

Buying a home involves a lot more than purchasing a place to live. It’s also an enormously important long-term investment. The housing market is cluttered, with demand badly outpacing supply, and if it were easy to get a home, everyone would buy one.

However, if you take advantage of new technology and keep a few things in mind, a home is that much more within reach.

Finding a Real Estate Agent

Traditionally, finding a real estate agent has been a challenge for those looking to buy or sell a property. The good news is that, with the rise of real estate tech, you don’t need a relative who works in the industry to get an inside edge on buying a home. 

Notably, digital innovator Regan McGee created the real estate platform Nobul to streamline the homebuying process and even save buyers money. As McGee told Toronto Life, “people think buying and selling real estate is complicated, but that’s a way for agents to justify their fees.”

After homebuyers list their budget and describe what they’re looking for in a property in the app, vetted real estate agents compete against each other, offering free services or even cash back to secure the client. Until now, it was rare for deal flow to tilt in the buyer’s favour when shopping for a home. 

Plus, buyers see transparent agent profiles listing their services, fees, experience, and user reviews. Nobul doesn’t accept cash from agents to get listed, so the profiles are reliable.

Now, anybody using Nobul can get it.

The Money

The largest obstacle to buying a home most people face is money. First, work backwards and see how much a monthly mortgage for a reasonable home might cost. Be sure to understand the specific finances because, with the cost of rent rising quickly, the gap between rent payments and mortgage payments might not be as large as you think.

Obviously, it’d be great to make more money from work or have access to family financial support. You can always use Nobul to shave money off the home cost. The best thing to do is invest and save wisely, get a mortgage that works for you for a starter home, and work up from there.

Competition

Even if you have the money for a down payment, the market may be competitive for the type of home you want. The recent slowdown in places like Ontario is relative; prices may have come down from what they were months ago, but they’re still much higher than they were in 2021 or 2020. 

The days when every home on the market required winning a bidding war may be over, but homes in specific price brackets are still very competitive. If you’re not the only one trying to lock down that home, you have a few options.

You can offer a larger down payment, raise the overall price, and have your pre-approval and all pertinent banking ready. The more the seller must wait, the likelier they are to go with someone else. 

Purchasing a home is a major life event. It’s not like any other purchase you’ll ever make. The best and biggest things in life are often difficult to achieve, and buying a home has obstacles. Remember the above to overcome them and enjoy living under your own roof.

Photo by Max Vakhtbovych at Pexels