A First-Time Homebuyer's Guide, Start To Finish - The Strategic First-Time Homebuyer Book - Chapter 8 Shopping For a House

April 28, 2026

r/NewbHomebuyer

......This is chapter 8, just scroll down a little beyond the intro and you'll pick up where you left off......

Hey guys, I spent a lot of time writing this book, and I had this subreddit in mind as I was writing it, so I thought I would post it here for you for free. If you want the physical book you can always go on Amazon, but here's my gift to you 😄

I'll include links so you can jump between chapters easily.

I hope you find it helpful.

The Strategic First-Time Homebuyer

Start to finish, with strategies to get approved and save thousands in interest, costs, and the down payment.

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 How Much Can I Afford? 3

Chapter 2 How Much Cash Do I Need? 16

Chapter 3 How To Find The Down Payment 30

Chapter 4 Your Debt To Income Ratio 41

Chapter 5 Choose Your Lender 69

Chapter 6 You’ve Been Denied (Your Credit) 80

Chapter 7 Selecting a Real Estate Agent 90

Chapter 8 Shopping For a House108

Chapter 9 Under Contract: Inspections and Appraisals 121

Chapter 10 Under Contract: Rate Lock and Underwriting 129

Chapter 11 How To Lower Your Rate 144

Chapter 12 Closing 163

Chapter 13 Post Closing 171

About the Author 190

Glossary 191

Chapter 8

If you’ve done your planning and preparation thoroughly, this next part could go very fast.

Abraham Lincoln’s quote comes to mind here: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first hour sharpening the axe.”

Once you have a great agent and know your budget and must-haves, you could tour a home, make an offer, and go under contract all in the same day.

Here’s a tip: know what you want ahead of time. Don’t visit homes that don’t meet your needs.

Example: if your monthly budget matches a $400,000 house, don’t go looking at $600,000 homes.

If you see homes that match your budget, but don’t match other needs, then go back to the drawing board. Re-evaluate your budget and see if you can make room for a more expensive home.

Knowing what you want and need ahead of time will make home shopping very easy. Online shopping tools make it easy to filter out homes that don’t fit your criteria. This way you won’t get exhausted or waste time looking at the wrong homes.

If It Takes Longer Than a Weekend

I once had a terrible ring-shopping experience. I visited three stores in total. At the first store I was overwhelmed with the sales process and the price tag. The second store was slightly less overwhelming. By the third store, I was done shopping and said "let's just do this one," and settled on a ring with a price tag double what I was planning for.

I bring this up because you may feel similarly overwhelmed, and if you visit too many homes, you may just make an emotional decision out of exhaustion or desperation.

For some people, it could take weeks or months to find the right house. You might see ten homes in one weekend, and ten homes the following weekend.

As an agent, I’ve helped someone see over 30 homes in 3 weeks. Toward the end, the buyers were getting confused. They’d asked me to see a property, and I'd let them know they had already seen that property, and I gave them the notes.

When you push beyond 10 homes, keeping them organized is difficult.

I made a tool to help buyers with this issue.

Visit tools.newbhomebuyer.com/homeshop and use the HomeShop tool.

You add properties with a listing link or address, rate it on specifics, like 5 stars on the kitchen, 3 stars on the yard, with spots for notes on each part of the house.

Afterward it will give you a ranking list of the top homes according to your preferences.

You can share that list with your agent, your partner, or if you like sharing these things with your friends and family, go for it.

It’s my favorite tool on the website.

Stay organized. Don’t rely on memory if you visit more than 3 homes. Go check it out.

Making Offers

So you’ve seen a few homes and love one in particular.

Let’s make a deal.

When you and your agent write an offer you’ll review these important aspects:

● The purchase price

● The earnest money

● Deadline dates

● The length of the contract

● Seller credits

● Repairs

● Personal items

Purchase Price

What’s the right price to offer on a home?

There isn’t a simple answer to that question, because each property is different, each seller is different, and each market is different.

There’s a practice in real estate investment called “wholesaling”

These wholesalers will reach out to homeowners usually via postcard and offer to buy the owner’s home in cash.

They usually target homeowners who are struggling to pay their mortgage or property taxes.

This offer is well below the market value, and once they get a homeowner to agree to terms, the wholesaler will sell the contract to a cash investor.

Even if the market is hot, this homeowner might need to get rid of the home quickly, and without the ‘hassle’ of getting it sale-ready.

I’m not suggesting that you should send thousands of postcards out to delinquent homeowners. But I’m trying to make a point that the right price won’t have the same answer.

Here are some general thoughts:

A seller’s market means there are more buyers than sellers, and a seller can typically expect to receive higher, more competitive offers.

In a buyer’s market, there are more sellers than buyers, and buyers can expect to have an easier time negotiating things like credits, concessions, or lower-than-asking prices.

An agent should do the work to call the listing agent and pull as much information as he can. This information can be used to get a better deal for you.

I’ll give an example from Chris Voss’s book “Never Split the Difference”

He spoke of Haitian kidnappers who treated it as a business. He saw a pattern in these negotiations, that they’d be more lenient and flexible on the random price as it got closer to the end of the week.

These kidnappers wanted money to party on the weekend. So their ransom became flexible on Fridays.

If your agent can discover that the sellers need to have the house sold quickly, then that information can be used to write a lower offer, but quicker deadlines.

In a seller’s market, you, your agent, and your loan officer will need to put your heads together for a game plan.

It’s disheartening to lose out offer after offer to other cash buyers, investors, or cash investors offering $50,000 over the asking price.

Here’s what you should do and expect from your team:

Agent

Have your agent call the listing agent before you make the offer. The agent might be able to glean what matters most to the seller, and then help you structure it accordingly.

Lender

Have your lender check for an appraisal waiver. If you are putting 20% down or more toward your loan, it may be eligible for a waiver. Appraisals can slow down the process. Waiving that piece will speed things up.

Have your lender call the listing agent to further authenticate or endorse you as a buyer. Pre-approval letters are standard. A call from the lender stands out.

If the lender offers guarantees, use them. Some will offer "Close on time" guarantees.

If you’re swinging and missing offer after offer, don’t give up. Brainstorm these ideas with your team.

The Earnest Money

Earnest money is a good faith deposit you put down when you go under contract on a home.

It shows the seller: “I’m serious about buying this property, and I’m willing to put money on the line to prove it.”

Here’s what I’ll cover with earnest money:

● The amount

● Where it goes

● When you pay it

● When you can get it back

● When you lose it

The Amount

There’s no universal rule, but in practice it’s often 1%-3% of the purchase price. It can be lower or higher depending on the market.

In a competitive situation, buyers will sometimes increase earnest money to make their offer stronger.

It increases the seller’s confidence that the buyer won’t back out.

Where It Goes

This money is typically held by a neutral third party (like a title company or brokerage), not the seller directly.

Earnest money is not an extra fee.

If the deal closes, it gets applied toward your purchase, whether that’s toward the down payment or closing costs.

So you aren’t losing it, you’re just paying part of your costs early.

When You Pay

Usually within a few days of going under contract (often 1–3 days).

If you miss this deadline to deposit your earnest money then you’re technically in breach of contract.

When You Get It Back

Earnest money is protected by contingencies and deadlines.

If you cancel the contract for a valid reason before certain deadlines, you typically get it back.

Here are some common protected scenarios:

● You cancel during the due diligence period

● Your financing falls through before the financing deadline

● The appraisal comes in low and you can’t reach an agreement

In these cases, your earnest money is refunded.

When You Lose It

You risk losing your earnest money if:

● You back out after deadlines have passed

● You simply change your mind with no contractual protection

● You fail to perform (for example, don’t close on time without a valid reason)

At that point, the seller may be entitled to keep your deposit as compensation for taking their home off the market.

You may also lose the earnest money if you wrote your contract aggressively, like making some or all of it unprotected in order to beat out other offers.

Deadline Dates

A contract can also be viewed as a series of deadlines, and the consequences of not meeting those deadlines. There’s due diligence, financing, appraisal, and settlement.

Due Diligence/Option Period

This is your investigation window. During this period, you are verifying that the home is actually worth buying. This includes:

● Home inspection

● Reviewing disclosures

● Checking condition (roof, foundation, systems)

● Getting repair quotes if needed

The deadline means up until this date, you typically have the ability to:

● Cancel the contract

● Renegotiate price or repairs

● Request credits

After this deadline passes, your leverage drops significantly. In many contracts, your earnest money becomes at risk if you try to back out for condition-related issues.

Financing Deadline

This is the date by which your loan must be fully approved, not just pre-qualified.

At this point, your lender has:

● Verified income

● Reviewed assets

● Approved credit

● Cleared underwriting conditions (or is very close)

This deadline means up until this date, if financing fails, you can usually:

● Cancel the contract

● Get your earnest money back

After this deadline passes:

● You are expected to close regardless

● Failure to close can result in losing your earnest money

Your pre-approval isn’t the same as a full approval. Underwriting will check that everything matches from the time you were pre-approved.

Appraisal Deadline

This is when the property must be valued at or above the purchase price by the lender’s appraiser.

If the appraisal comes back lower, then depending on your contract, you may be able to cancel the contract. I’ll cover other options too.

Settlement Deadline

Settlement means the date you sign the closing documents. Everything has been cleared up until this point, and you’re ready to close.

Length of Contract

In several states, 30 days is normal, but other states might require more work, especially in title states where research for ownership takes longer.

Besides title taking a long time, you’ll want to see if the financing and appraisal will need more time.

Manual underwriting can take longer than 30 days.

Rural areas are limited with appraisers and you’d be subject to the appraiser’s availability.

You or your agent should speak with your loan officer about the length of contract before submitting an offer.

Seller Credits (Concessions)

In your offer you can ask the seller to cover your closing costs for the mortgage.

Your closing costs can be high, especially if you’re aiming for a lower interest rate that comes with buydown points (more on this later).

There’s a limit to how much the seller can contribute toward your costs, and it depends on the loan type.

Here’s the chart:

Loan Type	Max Concessions
Conventional (with <10% down payment)	3%
Conventional (with 10%–25% down)	6%
Conventional (with >25% down)	9%
FHA	6%
USDA	6%
VA	4%

Repairs

If you noticed something that needs fixing from a tour of the home, then you’d ask for the repairs in the contract.

Repair and concession requests are typically done after you’ve fully inspected the property, so you may want to wait to include that in your contract until after the inspection.

Personal Items

There may be items in the house that you’d expect to stay with the home, but if it isn’t mentioned in the contract, plan on them leaving with the seller.

These are things like fixtures or blinds (usually already assumed to be in the contract) but anything else like appliances, furniture, projector, etc., will need to be written in.