We offered on a two story 2,000 sq foot home not far from our current rental. They accepted verbally and when the sellers realtor received a written confirmation we are going forward with the purchase.
We must get with our banker and update our loan information with current payroll information and make sure all the mortgage details are settled on. We scraped enough money together for a 20 percent down payment which means no PMI, Private Mortgage Insurance, so payments will be less.
We also need to get the home inspection taken care of which will happen on Monday, fun times. We will have to pay this out of our pocket as is usual for home inspections. A home inspection is important so you know any problems small and large that you should know about and have taken care of eventually. A home inspector will be experienced in looking at things that you may not know of or think to. Either the seller or buyers agent will arrange to open the door for the inspector and I plan to be there to watch, check out any problems as he finds them and do some measuring.
We also need to get to our insurance agent and start home owners insurance, but with the 20 pecent down payment we may be able to deal with this on our own instead of having to deposit monthly payments into an escrow account. We will find out from our banker if we are required to deposit monthly into an acocunt to pay the insurance and taxes or if we can deal with this on our own and pay the insurance and taxes ourselves.
These are the first steps when a home offer is accepted: loan and mortgage with banker, insurance and home inspection.
After this it will be up to the banker to arrange the appraisal and other things.