Jessica Martinsen · Austin Real Estate

First home in Austin: the whole sequence, in order

The start-to-close sequence for a first Austin purchase - budget by DTI, preapproval, the buyer's agreement, offer anatomy, the option period, and the first-year moves.

Work the sequence in order and the process shrinks to a series of small decisions. First, money before homes: pull your credit reports and fix errors, then build the budget from your actual monthly life rather than a lender's ceiling - lenders qualify roughly against 28% of gross income for housing and 36% including other debts, but the number that matters is the payment you can make while still living. In Austin that payment must include property taxes at roughly 2% of value per year and real insurance, which together can add a mortgage-sized chunk; this site's affordability and payment calculators run that math with the tax line included.

You do not need 20% down; you need the right loan shape. FHA starts at 3.5% down, VA at zero for eligible military borrowers, and conventional first-timer programs at 3% - 20% merely removes mortgage insurance, and waiting years to accumulate it while renting is often the more expensive path. Texas adds real help: TDHCA's My First Texas Home and TSAHC's programs offer down-payment assistance and mortgage credit certificates within income and price limits that change annually and cover more of the Austin market than people assume. Get preapproved - documents verified, not a website prequalification - by a lender who has actually priced these programs against each other for your file.

Since 2024, expect to sign a written buyer-representation agreement before touring homes - a national settlement made the industry formalize what was always true, that your agent works for you under agreed terms including how they are paid. Read it, negotiate scope and duration like the contract it is, and then use the representation: a first-timer's agent earns their fee in offer strategy and repair negotiation, exactly the two places inexperience is expensive. From there the search is ordinary - the shortlist, the showings, the neighborhood drive-bys at night - until an offer forms.

An Austin offer has four moving money parts: price; earnest money, commonly around 1% held at the title company and credited back at closing; the option fee, a smaller amount buying your unrestricted right to terminate during the option period; and your requests - closing-cost help, the survey, a home warranty. Then the clock runs: inspection inside the option window (foundation, HVAC, sewer scope on older homes - the inspection guide here goes deep), repair negotiation, appraisal, and underwriting to a close typically 30 to 45 days out. If the appraisal lands under contract price, that is a negotiation with three exits - price cut, extra cash, or meet in the middle - not a catastrophe.

The first year has three unglamorous moves that outperform any furniture purchase. File the homestead exemption with the county appraisal district the January after you close - free, removes $100,000 of assessed value from school taxes, caps future assessment growth at 10% a year. Protest the appraisal each spring; your closing price is evidence, and the habit compounds for as long as you own the house. And reshop insurance at the first renewal, because the loyalty penalty is real. Keep every improvement receipt in one folder from day one - future-you, selling this house in a very different market, will be grateful.

This page is a planning guide, not a market report. Confirm current prices, taxes, insurance and property facts against authoritative sources before acting on them.

Ask Jessica Martinsen about First home in Austin: the whole sequence, in order