Hi, Lucy and Daniel! Here's a quick rundown of the home purchase process! I recommend we take an hour over coffee when you're ready to go over everything in greater detail. There are going to be some expenses associated with the purchase process. Within three days of going under contract you'll need to provide an earnest money deposit via wire transfer or personal check. This is usually 1% of the purchase price so on a $350k house, it would be about $3500. This money is applied to your closing costs. Second, I would strongly recommend doing a home inspection. This is usually about $750-$1250 and will be paid to the inspector at the time of the home inspection. I always recommend including a sewer scope and a radon test! There will also be an appraisal as well as other loan processing fees. These are numbers you'll want to get from your mortgage lender, but the cost of an appraisal is probably around $800. Touring houses is the fun part. The biggest challenge in the process right now is getting a home under contract. There is more to winning an offer beyond just being the highest offer. Other points of negotiation to write a stronger offer could be: 1. Limiting Seller`s risk in the Inspection period by stating that you will only raise objections to major items that affect the safety and habitability of the house, OR going one step further and stating that you will not raise any inspection objections at all... although you still have the ability to perform an inspection so you can make an informed decision to purchase the home. In either case, this does not impact your right to terminate the contract if there was something in the inspection that made you not want to proceed with the sale, but it gives the seller a little more assurance that you're not going to use the inspection as a way to negotiate the price way down. 2. Earnest money mentioned above is almost always refundable to the buyer if you terminate the contract using one of the appropriate deadlines. Some buyers will offer their Earnest money up as non refundable at a determined point in the contract (ex. immediately at signing by all parties, or after inspection, or as late as after appraisal) This can be a good faith way of showing the seller your sincere desire to see the contract through to completion but can also be risky if you're not 100% committed to the house. 3. Title Insurance and Owner`s Extended Coverage is customarily paid by the seller (total amount is usually under $1500) but a buyer could offer to cover these expenses for the seller. 4. Covering seller`s portion of the closing costs. Usually, the total cost paid to the title company for closing services is sub $400, split equally between both parties. Like with the title insurance, a buyer could offer to cover this completely for the seller. 5. Escalation clauses can be useful in a multiple offer situation to give an edge in a bidding war. An escalation clause states that a buyer will beat any bona fide competing offer by a certain amount (ex. buyer will pay $1,500 over any higher competing offer up to a maximum the buyer can set) Think of this like the auto-bidding feature on eBay. 6. Appraisal guarantees can be one more way to set an offer apart. In this case, the buyer would agree to pay all of or a portion of the difference between their offer price and appraised value if the appraisal comes in low. This basically assures a seller that they are going to get what they initially thought they were going to get from the offer. (ex. if offer is $325k and the property appraised for $320k, buyer would increase their down payment by $5,000 to make up the difference) All of these options are subject to your discretion and comfort level and some of them may not be possible depending on your cash situation, but I want to make sure we have everything on the table for you to consider. Right now there is still plenty of competition in the Colorado real estate market and homes are typically going for list price or higher. The more we can do to get a seller to pick us the better! I realize this is a lot of info so let me know if there's anything I can clarify or explain better! Below is a blank copy of the purchase contract we'll be using so you can familiarize yourselves! Let me know if you'd like clarification on anything! I've also included some contact info for mortgage lenders below. I'll have Darren Cox with 8z Mortgage give you a call today or tomorrow to just give you an idea of where you stand!