Your home is a huge investment. To ensure the purchase process is successful you need a realistic budget and manageable expectations.

Your home is typically the largest single investment you’ll ever make. Purchasing it can be exciting, scary and downright confusing. Before you dive in head first, these are three of the top purchase considerations that will help to make your home buying process as successful and enjoyable as possible.

Set a Realistic Budget
Before you go house hunting and before you make wish lists, work with a Loan Officer to determine a realistic budget. Your Loan Officer will help you by considering a variety of factors, including the size of your down payment, your monthly income, and your current monthly expenses.

Setting a budget will help you identify which homes are within your reach. Additionally, a budget will set you up for financial success by determining a monthly mortgage payment you can reasonably make throughout the duration of your mortgage.

Manage (and Rank) Your Expectations
Whatever your dream home is, whether it’s the country cottage with the sprawling patio or a downtown loft with granite counter tops, affording it can be difficult. To ensure you stay within your budget, prepare a list of properties within your price range. Tour them. Take a critical look at what you can afford and set realistic expectations for your upcoming purchase.

Then – create a list of items which are most important to you. Be sure to rank them, placing the most important items at the top.

Think Location
Location should certainly make the list of items which are important to you. But, it should have its own list too. Your future home’s location will play a significant role in how enjoyable it is to go home. It will also play a significant role in how your home retains or increases its value.

Where specifically are you willing to live? Do you want to live in a suburb? Do you want to live in a metropolis? Are there specific neighborhoods in which you will or won’t live? Is it important that you can walk to the grocery store or that you can’t pass butter between the windows of your next-door neighbors?