Our Buyer's Guide

Our 8 step process for buyers help to ensure that our buyer's find the home of their dreams.

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Our 8 Step Buying Process

Meet in Person and Create a Wishlist

Let’s get to know each other! Getting to know your Real Estate Agent is very important so we find it valuable to set time aside to actually get to know one another. Once you’re ready to work with our team, we’ll meet together for a Buyer Consultation to focus your search and determine what you want and need in a home.

Pre-Qualification

We’ll introduce you to our mortgage partner, who can help you determine your buying price range with confidence. Be prepared to dig into paperwork during this part of the process such as pay stubs, W2’s, and tax returns. The lender will do a full review and then tell you what you will be able to borrow in order to purchase a home. This is a vital step in the home buying process!

Listing Alerts Sent to You Based on Your Criteria

Need to move for a job? Want a shorter commute? Getting married? Having a baby? Need to upgrade or downsize? Our Agents will send you notifications about the listings that you’re most likely to be excited about. Be sure to let us know if one (or more) jumps out at you so that we can skip to the next step and schedule a viewing.

Schedule Viewings and Attend Open Houses

Here’s where the buying process gets really fun! We’ll go to local open houses together and schedule viewings of the homes that you’ve loved from our listing alerts. We’ll talk about how the budget will work and make sure that we find you the perfect home.

Find the Perfect Home and Write an Offer

When you’re ready to make an offer, your agent will present a written offer to the seller. And while everyone loves getting their offer accepted right away, the seller could come back to us with a counter offer, or reject your initial offer all together. We’re happy to walk you through each of these possibilities and exactly how to handle them. Once the offer is accepted, it’s time to get your financing in order and move forward to the next step!

Acceptance, Appraisal and Inspection

The sellers accepted your offer, and the home is going through appraisal and inspection. The appraisal guarantees that the price of the property matches the condition of the property while the inspection makes sure that everything in the home is functioning properly and there are no major issues inside. These are the last steps before the shiny keys to your home are placed in your hand... for good!

Time to Close and Get the Keys

Get excited because it’s time to close on your home! This process includes going through all of the final paperwork and signing your name (a lot!). Don't forget to bring all of the paperwork you’ve collected along the way and your down payment.

Celebrate! 🥂

Congratulations! You are now a homeowner and purchasing a home is definitely something to celebrate. If you choose to work with the Ritchie Realty Group, we will make sure that buying a home is a fun and exciting experience worth celebrating.

Why Buy Your Home With Us?

There are over 8,000 agents on the Columbus Board of REALTORS®, but we are confident that choosing Ritchie Realty group is the right choice.

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