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There are many landmines you can avoid when you are considering buying a home. Here are some researched points and strategies to help you prepare for success along with the appropriate mortgage information:

Have a Mortgage Professional pull your credit report and explain it to you. You may be able to get a better interest rate and more favorable loan terms by redistributing some of your balances on credit cards, car loans, etc. A loan advisor can help you correct errors on your credit report and determine which balances to transfer and eliminate in order to improve your credit score.

Understand your own household spending habits and establish how much you can afford to spend each month

Some of the areas to consider (Especially for First Time Home Buyers):

- Finance your home based on your monthly payment comfort level

- Understand your before and after-tax monthly payments

- Eliminate some other loans you may have to make available more monthly cash flow that enables you to improve your home buying budget

Don't get caught in the pre-approval | pre-qualification trap. It is always better to get a full approval / loan commitment from a loan office before you even start looking for condos for sale in Northern Virginia. Many mortgage brokers and lenders will give you a pre-approval or pre-qualification, but these are often not worth the paper that they are written on. What you really need is a bona fide commitment from a mortgage lender that you are in fact approved for financing. Many home purchases have been ruined because buyers, sellers and Realtors have counted on pre-approval letters that proved meaningless.

Start Paying attention to the local and regional economic factors paying particular attention to local housing inventories, local unemployment rates, speculation and other factors that can have an impact on the Northern Virginia Real Estate market.