Resources for first-time homebuyers

Determining what you can afford

A common guideline is spending 28% to 33% of your income on housing, though plenty of buyers are more comfortable below that. What matters is the payment you actually want to live with, not the maximum a lender will approve.

In addition to mortgage payments, you will also need to make sure you budget for property taxes, home insurance, water and sewer, regular maintenance, utilities, closing costs, and any other fees that may come with owning a home. These will vary depending on the community you purchase your home in.

Some mortgage calculators will automatically estimate your property taxes in specific zip codes. But it's always good to work with an agent who knows the community and the additional costs of living there.

See current rates and estimate your monthly payment right here!

Down payments

Down payments can also affect your monthly mortgage payment. The more you put down the less you pay over time in interest. If you put down less than 20% on a conventional loan, you'll likely pay private mortgage insurance (PMI), an added monthly cost that goes away once you've built enough equity.

Loan Options

Most first-time buyers in Central Massachusetts use one of four options, though there are several other mortgage options available. Conventional loans are the most common, but FHA, VA, and MassHousing loans are available for buyers who have meet eligibility requirements.

Loan type	Down Payment	Credit Score
Conventional	As low as 3%	620
FHA	As low as 3.5%	500*
VA	As low as 0%	580*
MassHousing	Varies	640*

There are many other loan options available, including USDA loans, jumbo loans, and adjustable rate mortgages (ARM). The type of loan that makes sense for you will depend on your monthly budget and income, credit score, down payment, interest, property type, and program eligibility.

View more mortgage types right here!

*The FHA requires a down payment of at least 10% with a credit score of 500. The minimum credit score for a 3.5% down payment is 580. The VA does not have strict credit score minimums, but the common lower end is around 580. MassHousing does not have a strict minimum either, but the common lower end is around 640.

Down payment assistance

MassHousing provides down payment assistance for qualified homebuyers in the form of a second mortgage. Some cities and towns also have down payment assistance grant programs or incentives for certain first-time homebuyers. Finding these programs and incentives is something that a buyer's agent can help with.

Is my pre-approval amount my budget?

It's important to remember that the amount you're approved for is not necessarily what your budget will be. Many people are approved for more than they can comfortably afford. This is why it's important to go over your finances and budget to determine how much you can truly afford.

Demonstrate you can get a loan before you make an offer

It's tempting to start your homebuying process by simply looking at available houses before you've started shopping for a lender. I never discourage anyone from starting here, but I do like to manage expectations when someone starts with viewing.

While you absolutely can make an offer without a pre-approval, many sellers won't take an offer seriously if you can't prove you can pay. Because the process of closing the sale of a house is already complex and time-consuming, sellers want to be certain that accepting an offer won't lead to delays in closing or have a transaction fail because a buyer isn't qualified for the loan they're applying for.

Pre-approvals are the expectation for most sellers. Losing your dream home to someone who was positioned to make an offer before you can be heartbreaking and frustrating. It's better to be prepared so that you can make your offer attractive from the start.

Should I avoid looking at houses without a pre-approval?

I still think there's a lot of value in viewing houses before your pre-approval is completed. It's a great way for you to learn more about the market and start thinking about more must-haves and dealbreakers in your dream home. It's also a great way for me to learn more about you and what you're looking for.

Pre-approval vs. pre-qualification: not the same thing

Although these terms often get used interchangeably by many people, they refer to very different things. A pre-qualification is usually a rough estimate on what you might be able to borrow based on a soft credit pull and unverified information you provide. It's generally not enough to make a seller take an offer seriously or prove you can actually secure the loan.

A pre-approval is a formal process lenders use to verify your income, assets, debts, and ability to pay. Once you're pre-approved, the lender writes a letter that states how much they will lend you to purchase a home. This is the document that sellers take seriously when considering offers.

How long does it take to get pre-approved?

Getting a decision can take as little as a few business days, but in some cases the process can take weeks to verify your information.

How long is my pre-approval valid for?

The amount of time a pre-approval is valid for once it's issued varies by lender, but typically it's about 60 to 90 days. When your pre-approval expires, you can renew by updating your documentation when requested by your lender.

Renewing is generally straightforward, but the amount you're approved for can change if there's a change in your household income, debt, assets, or circumstances that would impact your ability to repay the loan.

Will getting multiple pre-approvals from different lenders hurt my credit?

Credit bureaus generally treat multiple hard credit pulls from mortgage lenders over a 14 day period as a single hard pull. The single hard pull may drop your credit. Some newer FICO scores have increased this window to 45 days.

Will renewing my pre-approval hurt my credit?

In most cases, probably not. A second hard pull, if a lender does one, may cause a 2 to 5 point drop.

What can hurt your credit is taking out new car loans or signing up for credit cards in between letters.

For the best, most accurate consumer advice about navigating credit, it's always best to check with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Will getting pre-approved lock my interest rate?

No. Locking your interest rate is a separate process that can only be done once you have finalized your offer and submitted a full application for your loan.

Finding a home that fits your lifestyle

This is the part most people picture when they imagine buying a home: scrolling listings and walking through houses. It's the fun part, but it's easy to let it pull you around. A tour isn't about falling in love with a house. It's about gathering the information you need to make a good decision later.

Before you start looking, it's a good idea to be intentional about what you actually need versus what you'd just like to have. Pick the five to ten features that genuinely matter to you and keep them separate from the nice-to-haves. No home is perfect, and you don't want to lose a great one over a feature or two that were never really dealbreakers.

Looking at homes early, even before you're ready to make an offer, can be a good way to figure out what belongs on that list. The more you see, the sharper your sense of what you actually want gets.

The neighborhood matters as much as the house

A house you love can still be the wrong home if it's in the wrong place for your life, so it's worth sizing up a neighborhood on its own. Think about your commute, walkability, the school district, and the everyday feel of the area.

Property taxes and living costs can vary a lot from one town to the next, so a home that fits your budget in one community might stretch it in the one next door.

If you can, drive through at different times of day. A street that's quiet on a Sunday afternoon can feel like a different place at rush hour, and that's something you'll only catch in person.

What to look for when you tour

Every home shows its best in a listing photo or a staged walkthrough. What you want to focus on is the condition of the things that are expensive to fix. Cosmetic issues like paint, fixtures, and dated finishes are usually cheap and easy to change. It's the structural and system problems that cost real money, so give those your attention:

• Roof and foundation
• Electrical
• Heating and cooling (HVAC)
• Plumbing and any signs of water damage
• Windows and insulation

Try to keep it to three or four homes a day. After that they start to blur together, so take notes and photos at each one while it's fresh. That's what turns a pile of half-remembered showings into something you can actually compare.

How a buyer's agent can help

Everything above is a lot to carry on your own, and it's where a good buyer's agent makes the difference.

Before you even start looking, a good agent sits down with you to go over your goals, your timeline, and what you're hoping to find. This way your search has a plan behind it instead of you just wandering from listing to listing. And the looking itself is a two-way street: the more homes you see with your agent, the more they learn about what actually fits you, so they can point you toward the homes worth your time.

A good agent also brings tools you don't have on your own. Agents have access to the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS), the database listings come from, so they can set up alerts that flag homes matching what you're looking for as soon as they're posted, and sometimes point you toward homes before they're widely public.

When a specific home catches your eye, they can put together a comparative market analysis (CMA), a look at what similar nearby homes have recently sold for, so you'll know whether the asking price is fair before you ever make an offer.

What happens once you've found the right property

Finding a new home you want to buy is the exciting part of the process. Making an offer is where it starts to get more complex because it's the first real contract in the deal.

An offer lays out the basics: the price you're offering, your deposit (also called earnest money, a good-faith payment that shows the seller you're serious and gets credited toward what you owe at closing), your closing date, and any contingencies. It's sent directly to the seller's agent to be presented to the seller for acceptance. If you're not working with a buyer's agent, you would contact the seller's agent to create the offer to be presented.

Here's the part that catches a lot of first-time buyers off guard. Once the seller accepts your offer, it's a binding contract. So the terms you put in your offer matter from the moment they're accepted.

That's why it's a good idea to have representation from a buyer's agent and even a real estate attorney who can make sure the contract protects your interests and deposit.

Contingencies are what protect you

The reason a binding offer isn't as scary as it sounds is contingencies. A contingency is a condition built into your offer that has to be met for the deal to go forward, and if it isn't, you can renegotiate or walk away without losing your deposit. They're your built-in protection. In Massachusetts, the ones to know are:

• Inspection: Gives you the right to have the home professionally inspected and to ask for repairs or a credit, or to walk, if something significant turns up.
• Financing: Gives you an out if your mortgage doesn't come through by a set date. The mortgage process itself comes later, but this is where you protect yourself for it.
• Appraisal: Protects you if the home appraises for less than you agreed to pay. This one matters because it isn't in the standard Massachusetts offer forms by default. It has to be added, and if it isn't, a low appraisal can leave you no way to renegotiate or walk without losing your deposit.

The inspection is where things can change

Once your offer's accepted, the inspection is usually the next big step, and it's where a deal can shift. You hire a professional inspector to go through the home and tell you what's really going on behind the paint and the staging: the roof, the foundation, the major systems, anything expensive or unsafe.

If the inspection turns up problems, your inspection contingency is what gives you room to respond. You can ask the seller to make repairs, ask for a credit toward your costs so you can handle them yourself, or, if it's serious enough, walk away. This is the negotiation that happens after your offer's accepted, and it's often the part that matters most, because it's your chance to deal with real problems before you're locked in.

Heading into the P&S

Once you and the seller have worked through anything the inspection raised, you move on to signing the P&S, the longer, more detailed contract that replaces your original offer and carries you toward closing. Before you sign it, it's a good idea to have a real estate attorney representing your interests.

How a buyer's agent can help

This stage is where a good buyer's agent earns their keep. A good agent helps you decide what to offer and which contingencies you need, walks you through what the inspection turns up and what's reasonable to ask for, and handles the back and forth with the seller's side so you're not negotiating on your own. It's the most complicated stretch of buying a home, and it's the part you'll be glad not to be doing alone.

Crossing the finish line

Closing is the day the home legally becomes yours and the keys are finally in your hand. But it takes a lot to get there once you're past the offer stage.

Signing the purchase and sale agreement (the P&S) starts the closing process, which usually takes 30 to 60 days. In that window a handful of things happen at the same time. Most of these tasks are handled by your lender and your attorney, but a few things are up to you. The whole process runs on deadlines, so it helps to know what's moving it forward or holding it back.

What happens between signing and getting your keys

Your lender finalizes the mortgage

While everything else is in motion, your lender is working to finalize your loan. They'll order an appraisal (an independent estimate of what the home is worth) and underwrite the loan, which means verifying your finances one more time in detail.

What they're working toward is your mortgage commitment, a letter confirming the lender will actually fund your loan. In Massachusetts that usually takes about three to four weeks from the P&S, and your P&S sets a deadline for it.

If you can't get your commitment by that date, the financing contingency you put in your offer lets you back out and get your deposit back.

If the appraisal comes in lower than the price you agreed to, you've got options: ask the seller to lower the price to match, cover the gap in cash, split the difference, or challenge the appraisal with recent sales of comparable homes. If nobody can agree and you have a financing contingency, you can usually walk away with your deposit.

Your attorney clears the title

At the same time, your attorney is making sure the home can be sold to you free and clear. They'll run a title search, a check of public records for anything that could cloud your ownership, like unpaid liens or old claims against the property, and clear up whatever turns up.

This is also when you'll want to consider owner's title insurance, a one-time policy that protects you if a claim on the property surfaces down the road.

What's on you before closing

Most of the above is handled for you. Two things aren't:

• Homeowner's insurance. You need a policy in place before closing, because your lender won't release the money without proof you're covered. Line it up early so it isn't a last-minute scramble.
• Your credit. Right up to closing, your lender can re-check your finances, so this isn't the time to open a new credit card, finance a car, or change jobs. Any of it can put your loan at risk this late in the game. It's best to sit tight until the keys are in your hand.

Closing day

Closing is where it all comes together. A few things lead up to it:

• At least three business days before, you'll get a Closing Disclosure, a form laying out your final loan terms and the exact costs you'll pay. Read it closely and compare it against what you were expecting.
• In the day or two before closing, you'll do a final walkthrough to confirm the home's in the condition you agreed on and any promised repairs got done.
• Your lender gives the final "clear to close."
• In Massachusetts, an attorney runs the closing, usually at their office. You'll sign the mortgage, the deed, and the rest of the loan documents, the money changes hands, and the deed is recorded at the Registry of Deeds, which is the moment the home is legally yours. Then you get the keys.

How a buyer's agent can help

By now most of the work is in your lender's and attorney's hands, but a good agent doesn't disappear once you're under contract. They stay with you through closing, keeping an eye on all these deadlines, answering the questions that come up, walking you through what you're signing, and making sure nothing stalls between the P&S and the keys.

This is the stretch where a first-time buyer tends to feel most out of their depth, so it helps to have someone in your corner who's done it all before.