Start with one honest question: when do you need to be in the new place? A lease ending, a school year, a job start date. That target works backward through everything else, including how hard you search and when you lock your rate.
Buying a home can feel like a lot at once. It helps to see the whole path laid out, from your very first decision to the day you get the keys. Click any step to see what it actually involves and how I help you through it.
Phase One · Steps 1–3
Before you tour a single house, get your foundation set. Decide when you actually want to move, talk with a lender, and find an agent you trust. The work you do now makes everything that follows go smoothly.
Start with one honest question: when do you need to be in the new place? A lease ending, a school year, a job start date. That target works backward through everything else, including how hard you search and when you lock your rate.
A pre-approval is a lender's written estimate of what you can borrow, based on a real look at your income, credit, and savings. It sets your budget and shows sellers you are serious. In a competitive offer, it is not optional.
Find someone you actually want to spend time with, because you will be spending a lot of it together. A good agent knows the neighborhoods, reads contracts for a living, and negotiates for you. Talk to a couple before you decide. Sometimes you cannot replace a face-to-face cup of coffee.
Phase Two · Step 4
Now the fun part. You are seriously looking, not just scrolling listings late at night. With your pre-approval and your agent in place, you can move fast when the right house shows up.
Now you are touring, not browsing. I can set you up to see new listings the moment they hit the market, so nothing good slips past you. When a house feels right, you will know, and you will be ready to act because the earlier steps are done.
Phase Three · Steps 5–6
You found it. Things move quickly here, so it helps to understand the documents that make up your offer before you sign them. A clean, well-built offer gets taken seriously.
An offer in Pennsylvania is more than a price. It is the Agreement of Sale, your deposit amount, the contingencies that protect you, and the dates you propose. I walk you through every piece so nothing surprises you later.
Very few offers are accepted exactly as written. The seller may counter on price, on dates, or on terms. This back and forth is normal and expected. My job is to keep you grounded and focused on what actually matters to you.
Phase Four · Steps 7–8
Once the seller signs, your offer becomes a binding sales contract. That starts the clock on several deadlines written into your agreement, and ordering title is one of the first.
When both sides have signed, you are under contract. Your deposit goes into escrow and the deadlines in your agreement become real. From here, the process is about hitting those dates one by one.
Title work confirms the seller can legally sell the home and that no liens or old claims follow the property to you. Your title company runs the search and prepares everything for settlement. Ordering it early keeps the whole timeline on track.
Phase Five · Steps 9–10
This is your window to really get to know the house. You and the seller have agreed that certain things must happen, like inspections and approvals, before the sale can close. Use this time well.
A licensed inspector goes through the house from the roof to the foundation and gives you a detailed report. This is your chance to learn what you are really buying. Walk through with the inspector if you can. You will learn a lot.
Based on the report, you can ask the seller to make repairs, give you a credit, or adjust the price. Not every finding is worth raising. I help you tell the real concerns apart from normal wear and tear.
Phase Six · Steps 11–13
Almost there. Your contingencies are behind you, your loan is moving, and title work is coming together. The last steps are a final walkthrough and settlement day.
A mortgage commitment is your lender's formal approval to fund the loan, one step beyond pre-approval. Your contract sets a hard deadline for it, so stay quick to respond when your lender asks for documents.
Shortly before settlement, we walk the house one last time together. We are confirming it is in the condition you agreed to, that any promised repairs are done, and that nothing has changed since your last visit.
This is the day the home becomes yours. You sign the final paperwork, the funds change hands, and you get the keys. Bring a valid photo ID, and be ready to celebrate. You earned it.
Before we tour any home together, we will sign a written buyer agreement. As of August 2024, this is a nationwide rule for any agent who uses the MLS, not a personal preference. The agreement is short. It puts in writing what I will do for you and exactly how my compensation works, stated as a clear number, before you set foot in a single property. You do not need one to talk with me or to meet me at an open house. To tour a home, in person or on a live video call, it comes first.
It comes from a nationwide legal settlement that took effect in August 2024. Any agent who uses the MLS now has to have a signed written agreement with a buyer before touring a home, whether that tour is in person or on a live video call. The point is transparency: you see what services you are getting and what they cost before you commit to anything. Simply talking with me, or running into me at an open house, does not require one.
It is a plain and fairly short document. It names me as your agent, describes what I will do for you, and states my compensation as a specific figure, either a flat fee or a percentage, rather than an open-ended "whatever the seller offers." By rule it also states plainly that broker fees are "fully negotiable and not set by law." Nothing in it is hidden, and we read through it together before you sign.
You and I set the length and the scope together, before anything is signed. An agreement can cover a single property, a single day of showings, or a longer search, whatever fits where you are in the process. Think of it as a two-way commitment: you get an agent genuinely working for you, and I commit my time and advocacy from the first showing through closing.
Until there is a signed agreement, you are a customer, and what I owe you is honesty. Once we have an agreement in place, you are my client, and I owe you a full set of duties: loyalty, confidentiality, full disclosure, and real care for your interests at every step. That client relationship is also what allows me to represent you in a negotiation, rather than simply hand you information.
My compensation is whatever you and I agree to in writing, and there are several ways it can be covered. A seller can still offer to pay some or all of a buyer agent's fee. You can ask the seller to contribute as part of your offer. Or it can be handled as a buyer cost at settlement. One thing to plan for early: real estate commissions cannot be rolled into your mortgage, so we will map out the options with your lender before you write an offer.
Yes. Sellers can still offer to pay buyer-agent compensation, and many do. What changed is that the offer can no longer be posted on the MLS. So when a home interests you, I will ask the listing agent directly whether the seller is open to contributing, bring that answer back to you, and we will decide together how to fold it into your offer.
Source: National Association of REALTORS®, “What the NAR Settlement Means for Home Buyers and Sellers” (updated May 2024). The practice changes took effect August 17, 2024. Read it on nar.realtor.
If you have a question about any step here, or you just want to talk through where you are and what comes next, reach out. No pressure and no script.
Get in TouchHenry Meigs is a Philadelphia-based REALTOR® serving buyers and sellers across Northwest Philadelphia and Montgomery County, PA. Let’s map out yours.