By Melanie Slone
When planning to buy a home, “a lot of people think there’s going to be a perfect time, interest rates, the market, the crash,” says Janet Cruz, 2025 president of the North County Chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP). “There’s rarely a perfect time, but you can always get prepared, get informed.”
NAHREP’s mission “is to advance sustainable Hispanic home ownership to build generational wealth,” she adds. “The Hispanic community has had a harder time having something to pass on to their children, so home ownership is important.”
People may think owning a home in San Diego is impossible, but Cruz says, “It’s more accessible than they think. It’s just a lack of information that holds most of us back.”
NAHREP hosts free first-time buyers’ courses every month in English and one in Spanish. “They break down the whole process. You can get all your questions answered face to face,” says Cruz. Or you can search online for other courses in the county.
These 11 steps can lead you to your new home.
Step 1: Prepare your finances
Before you think about buying a home, you must make sure you are financially ready. You should set a realistic budget based on your income, expenses, and debt. Next, check your credit score and do what you can to improve it. Make all credit card payments in full and on time, don’t open too many credit cards, and don’t use them too often.
If you have trouble with credit, says Cruz, a family member with good credit can add you as a signer, which will automatically reflect on yours. “If you’re managing your own credit cards, make sure that you’re not using over 30% of the credit limit,” she adds.
Then, begin saving for a down payment, which is usually between 3% and 20% of the cost of the home.
In San Diego County, to purchase a $700,000 home with a 3.5% down payment, you would need to be making about $150,000 a year, says Cruz. What if you can’t afford it?
She offers some options. “We’ve seen a lot of Hispanic communities come together with different family members or really close friends and co-borrow to get into home ownership, and then a few years down the line, they can sell, and they can split up and buy their own homes,” she explains.
“Maybe rent, have a roommate so they can make the mortgage payment and do that for a year, a couple of years so that they can gain some equity and then refinance out of that loan.”
She also tells us a lot of people work in San Diego County and move to Murrieta or Menifee, where homes are more affordable.
“Your first home doesn’t necessarily have to be your dream home,” “she says. “It’s just kind of getting your foot in the door.” After a couple years, you can find something more suitable or closer to your dream.
Step 2: Choose a lender
Research which financial institution is the best lender for you. Check ratings and reviews. Consider service in your language and culture, reasonable closing costs and fees, transparency in the loan process, and good rates on loans. You should feel comfortable asking the lender as many questions as you need answered.
Step 3: Find a real estate agent
“You go hand-in-hand with the realtor, and you get to know exactly what you’re walking into,” says Cruz. Find a knowledgeable agent who speaks your language and can find several possible homes for you to consider.
“We need to review what debt they have and understand how that affects the debt-to-income ratio and affordability for buying a home,” says Cruz. “A lot of people still have the idea that the down payment has to be 20%,” she says. A lender or real estate agent can explain that it can be as low as 3.5%.
Realtors help people find “the magic number, the purchasing power, so that when they’re out looking at homes, they know that they’ll be able to make an offer and it’ll be backed up by the lender,” she explains.
Cruz tells us home buyers can be legal residents, so long as they have official ID, two years of tax returns, and two months of paystubs. Lenders also work with small business owners, and NAHREP realtors can help with creative money solutions.
Step 4: Get preapproved for a mortgage
The preapproval process makes homebuying easier. You share your financial history with the lender, who will build your loan information for you. When the information is ready, the lender will give you a preapproval letter.
Step 5: Find your home
Find a home with the right price, space, and location. You may have to negotiate the price with the seller. Be sure to have the home you want inspected.
Step 6: Make an offer
Even if you make an offer, there are still steps to be taken that can take up to two months. “We might go into negotiation before the seller accepts the offer, which is very common in this market, and then after an offer is accepted, you go into escrow,” says Cruz.
Escrow is a third party that holds the documents until the process is completed and everyone has followed the guidelines to make the transaction.
Step 7: Get your mortgage
Work out the details of your loan with your lender, who will need several financial documents. You also must sign several documents.
Step 8: Schedule a home inspection
Hire a professional home inspector. If there are major issues, you may want to negotiate the price with the seller.
Step 9: Obtain homeowner’s insurance & schedule an appraisal
Your lender will probably choose an appraiser, but you must pay for it and schedule it.
“If you offered $700,000 and the appraisal comes back and they say, well, it’s only worth $680,000 after evaluating the home, then you go back to negotiations,” says Cruz. An example of an issue might be a home not having rain gutters, for example, so you need an estimate of how much they would cost or if the current owner should pay for them.
Step 10: Close the sale
You take over the property. It takes a few hours to sign everything and pay the closing costs and fees.
