Tips for First Time Buyers

What is the single most valuable piece of advice you received when you were in the process of buying your home?

Among the great advice in this thread are gems such as:

• Don’t go into debt to furnish your home.
• Get pre-qualified for the mortgage so you know how much you can work with…Then only spend 75% of what you’ve been pre-qualified for.
• Buy the worst house on the best street or neighborhood you can afford.
• Explore the neighborhood. Talk to the neighbors. Ask yourself if this is someplace you could live.
• Take your digital camera with you while touring homes.
• The closing date in the contract is meaningless. Don’t schedule movers or break leases, etc. until the official closing date is set.
• “Make a ridiculously low offer, because you can never negotiate downwards…I made the lowest offer I could bear, which saved us about 10% of the cost of the house.”
• “If you are bidding for a house among other potential buyers, write a one-page letter stating why you would really like to buy the house. The seller of my current home said it swayed his decision (we wrote a cover letter about dreams of raising our daughter with a big backyard).”