Why This Podcast Exists

I want to tell you about a client I had. I'll call her Maria. She came to me after spending three months trying to figure out home buying on her own. She'll read the articles, watch the YouTube videos, TikTok, Instagram, talk to a few family and friends, the normal. And when we finally sat down, the first thing she said to me was, I feel like I know a lot of words, but I don't actually understand anything. And that hit me because that's exactly what happens when you go looking for information about buying a home. You get words, you get steps, you get a lot of opinions, you get checklists, but nobody actually explains what any of it feels like or what you're supposed to do when something unexpected comes up and things will come up. And that's what this podcast is for. My name is D-A-Thoodat, or my favorite, just like that. I'm a mortgage broker and a licensed real estate agent, and I spent years working inside an escrow office as well. So I understand this transaction from every angle. Lending the agent side, escrow, title. I've lived in all of it. And every single day I work with first-time homebuyers. My whole job and the whole point of this show is to make sure you're one of the informed ones because I promise you the informed buyer has a better experience every time. So today, episode one, here's what we're doing. I'm not going to give you 12 steps and a checklist. No, I'm going to walk you through the seven moments in the home buying process that actually matter. The ones where most first-time homebuyers get surprised, get scared, or make a mistake they didn't have to make. By the end of this episode, you'll know what's coming, and knowing what's coming changes everything. So let's go with moment one, the conversation that changes everything. So before you do anything, before you look at a single listing, before you go to an open house, before you even drive through a neighborhood you like, you need to talk to a lender, not to get a pre-approval letter like you think, but to have a conversation. And here's what the conversation actually does: it tells you the truth about where you stand financially in the context of buying a home. And those two things, your finances and what a lender can actually do with them, are often different from what you expect. I've had clients come in completely confident, totally sure they knew their number, and walked out learning things about their own financial picture they didn't know. A credit score that was lower than what credit karma was showing them because credit karma uses a different scoring model than mortgage lenders do. A debt-to-income ratio that didn't work at the price they had in mind. Self-employment income that looked great on paper but showed much less on tax returns, which is very common. And that's because they've written off everything they legally could, which is a smart tax strategy, but it affects what a lender can use. None of that is disqualifying, all of it's workable, but you need to know it before you fall in love with the house. That's the whole point of this conversation. When you talk to a lender, they're going to pull your credit, look at your income, look at your debts, understand your employment history, and confirm your taxes are filed. Then they'll tell you what you qualify for, what your actual payment would look like at different price points, and honestly, this is the part I value most. What, if anything, needs to be addressed before you can buy? Sometimes the answer is you're ready right now. Sometimes it's give us three months to work on this one thing, or a year or two. Either way, you'll leave this conversation with a real plan, not a guess. To get a full pre-approval, you'll need your two most recent pay stubs, your two most recent bank statements, check-ins and savings, any investment or retirement accounts you plan to use, and usually W-2s from the past two years. Pull all of that together before the call. The whole process is faster and cleaner when you come in organized. End of the day, this is your decision. Our job and the job of any good loan officer, in my opinion, is to give you all the information you need to make the right choice for where you are right now. Pre-approval is where that starts. Moment two, building your team. The lender and the agent. Here's something I don't hear talked about enough. Your lender and your real estate agent are not two separate service providers you found independently. They are a team. And how well that team works together will have a direct impact on your experience. I promise you that. Because I'm a loan officer who worked with hundreds of real estate agents. And what I can tell you from that vantage point is this the deals that go smoothly are almost always the ones where the lender and the agent are genuinely communicating, not just copying each other on emails. Think about what each side needs from the other. Your agent needs your lender to be responsive, accurate, and fast because in a competitive market, a slow pre-approval update or a lender who's hard to reach can literally cost you the house. Your lender needs your agent to communicate what's in the offer, flag any potential issues early, and structure things in a way that doesn't create problems at underwriting. And when those two people already have a working relationship, they know each other's communication style. They trust each other's work, the issues get solved before they become your problem. That's the kind of team you want around you. So when you're choosing a lender, ask them who are some agents you've worked well with. And when you're choosing an agent and haven't choose a lender, ask, who are the lenders you really trust? Those referrals are worth a lot. Not because any financial arrangement between them. It's actually illegal for a lender to pay an agent for referring you, but because they've seen each other perform when things get hard. For your agent, make sure they're full-time and know your specific market. From one zip code to the next, conditions can be completely different. You need someone who can tell you what a house is actually worth, what sellers in that area are accepting right now, and how to write an offer that gets taken seriously. If you want help finding a vetted agent, we've partnered with Home and Money, homeandmoney.com slash FTHB, and that's a great place to start. Let's go to moment three, making an offer more than just a number. So you found the house, your lender confirmed the numbers work, and I mean confirmed for that specific property with that specific HOA, those property taxes, those assessments, not just the general pre-approval number, the specific one. That's an important distinction. Make sure that conversation has happened before the offer goes in. Now your agent puts together the offer. Price is part of it, but there are a few other things in there that matter. Usually 1 to 3% of the purchase price. That goes into escrow when your offer is accepted. It tells a seller you're serious. Depending on the contingencies in your contract, it can be refundable if something falls through. Or it can't be. Your agent will walk you through what's standard in your market. Closing costs. On top of your down payment, you'll have closing costs. Lender fees, title, and escrow fees, prepaid property taxes and insurance. Depending on the market, you can sometimes ask the seller to cover some of these. Whether they will or won't comes down to entirely to leverage. Which brings me to seller's market versus buyer's market because this changes your strategy completely. In a seller's market, there are more buyers than homes. Sellers have options. They can pick the cleanest offer, the highest price, the fewest contingencies, you have less room to ask for things. In a buyer's market, more homes are available than there are buyers. Now you have leverage. You can ask for closing costs, ask for repairs, ask for a longer escrow if you need it. Your agent should know which situation you're in for the specific home you're buying, in the specific neighborhood you're in, on the specific day you're submitting. And your lender and agent should be aligned on strategy before your offer gets submitted. Moment four. Escrow opens and the wire fraud warning. Your offer gets accepted, escrow opens, this is where the official transaction begins. Escrow is a neutral third party. They don't work for you, they don't work for the seller. Their job is to hold funds, manage documents, and make sure every condition of the contract is satisfied before the deal closes. Think of them as the referee or the middleman. Within the first 24 to 72 hours, you need to wire your earnest money deposit to escrow. And I want to take a moment here, because this is generally important. Wire fraud targeting home buyers is real. It's sophisticated and it still happens. Here's how it works. Someone intercepts your email communication or the escrow companies and sends you fake wire instructions that look completely legitimate. You wire the money, it goes to the wrong account, and in most cases, it's gone. The protection is simple. Before you wire a single dollar, call the escrow company directly using a phone number you looked up yourself, not one from the email, and verbally confirm every digit of those wire instructions. Every digit. It takes five minutes and it can save you from losing your entire earnest deposit to a scam. Do not skip this step. Once your funds are in, your lender gets the contract, sends out initial disclosures, and orders the appraisal. The loan officially kicks off. Now, one more thing about those initial disclosures, you'll receive what's called a loan estimate. A breakdown of your loan amount, estimated rate, estimated closing costs, and estimated cash to close. A good loan officer should go over that with you line by line. That way you understand where you're signing. And this needs to be done as soon as you can because the back end loan process cannot start until you do. Every day you wait is a day added to your closing timeline. The fifth moment, inspection and appraisal. Two very different things. Two things are happening in parallel here that are easy to confuse. The inspection and the appraisal. They sound familiar, they're completely different. It's very common to think those two are the same. The inspection of the house is for you. A licensed inspector goes through the entire property, roof, foundation, HVAC, water heater, plumbing, electrical, signs of moisture, everything. You'll get a report that might be 40 or 50 pages long. Do not let that scare you. They find something in every house. Even brand new construction. That's literally what they're paid to do. What you're actually looking for in that report is anything that's a safety issue, anything structural, anything that your loan type requires to be fixed before close, your agent should sit down with you and walk you through the report, not just email to you and say good luck. If yours doesn't offer to do that, ask. The appraiser is for the lender and for yourself too. An independent appraiser hired through a third party so there's no conflict of interest evaluates the property and determines its market value based on recent comparable sales in the area. The lender needs to know the home is worth at least what you're buying it for. They're not going to fund a$400,000 loan on a house that's worth$360,000. If the appraiser comes in at or above your offer price, you're good. If it comes in low, you have a few options here. The seller drops the price, you make up the difference in cash, you negotiate somewhere in the middle, or in some cases, you walk. This is a moment where your agent's negotiating ability matters a lot. It's worth asking any agent you consider, have you ever had a low appraisal come back on one of your deals? What happened? And how'd you handle it? Moment number six, the underwriting. Underwriting is the part of the process that stresses people out more than anything else. Us lenders included. And almost always the stress is because nobody explained what it actually is. Here's what it is. An underwriter is a person at the lender, different from your loan officer, who does an independent, detailed review of your entire file. Income, assets, credit, employment, the property, the appraisal, the loan program requirements. They're the final set of eyes before the lender commits to funding your loan. They are going to ask for more documents. I'm telling you this now so that way when it happens, you don't think something is wrong. It's not. It's normal. It happens on almost every single loan. They might want a letter explaining a large deposit in your bank account. They might want documentation of a job gap from three years ago. They might need a copy of your divorce decree or a written explanation of a late payment from 2019. Whatever they ask for, get it to them fast. Every day you take to respond is a day your closing gets pushed back. One thing worth knowing here, the underwriter does not talk to you directly. They don't talk to your agent. Everything goes through your loan officer, which, if you're working with me, is me. If you get a condition request that feels confusing or stressful, pick up the phone. That's exactly what my team is there for, and is what any good loan officer should be doing for you. When the underwriter is satisfied with everything, you get what's called a clear to close. Honestly, those three words are the best feeling in this whole process and the lender's process. Clear to close means you're done. You're going to close this loan. Moment seven, closing. After clear to close, your lender sends you the closing disclosure, the CD. This is the final version of your numbers. Everything is locked in. Your loan amount, your interest rate, your monthly payment, your closing costs, your exact cash to close. Compared to a loan estimate you signed at the beginning of escrow. Things may have shifted slightly, that's normal. If something looks very different, call your lender and ask. Federal law. You cannot sign your loan documents until those three days are up. So sign the CD the same day you receive it. Do not sit on it. Every hour you wait is an hour off your closing. After the three-day window, you sign your actual loan documents. This usually happens at a title company or with a mobile notary who comes to you. You'll be signing a lot of pages. The most important one is called the note. It shows your loan amount, your interest rate, your first payment date, and your last payment date. Keep that one. Keep it somewhere safe. After you sign, you wire the balance of your funds to escrow. Your down payment and closing costs minus the earnest money that you already put in. Same rule as before. Call escrow and verify the wire instructions before you send anything. Once you sign and the wire is received, the lender funds the loan. Escrow then delivers the package to the county for recording. The instant your deed is recorded, you are now a homeowner. Not when you sign, not when you wire, when it records. Go get your keys, take the photo, you earned it. So those are the seven moments. That's the whole journey from the first conversation with the lender to the day you hold the keys. Now I want to say something I say to every single client I work with. At the end of the day, every decision in this process is yours. Our job and the job of this podcast is to make sure you have all the information you need to make the decision that's right for you at this moment given where you are. Not the decision someone else made, yours. The buyers who I've seen struggle the most aren't the ones with the toughest financial situations. They're the ones who got surprised, who didn't know the inspection report was going to be that long, who didn't know underwriting would ask for more documents, who didn't know about wire fraud until it was too late. You're not going to be that person. Starting with episode two, we go deep on each of these moments, one per episode. We start with finding the right lender because I'm the lender. What to ask them and what to know if they're actually a good fit for you. That's up next, and it's a good one. If you're a first-time homebuyer and you want to talk to someone about your actual situation, I really do want to help you out and answer any questions that you have. You can find me on Instagram at DatLones or the podcast at FTHP Pros. Send us a DM. Ask a question. Tell us where you're at. I'm just going to give you the honest answer. Thanks for listening. See you on episode two.