Deciding to buy a home is the first step. There are eleven more after it.

Knowing where to begin, what to expect, and where the real pitfalls are is usually the harder part, especially the first time through.

We came across a breakdown from Sharran Srivatsaa, a real estate strategist who has overseen more than 200,000 transactions and bought over 3,500 homes himself. One point he made stuck with us: most of the mistakes buyers make happen before they ever set foot in a house.

He maps the whole process into 12 steps across four stages: Strategy, Search, Contract, Close. Here's what each one looks like if you're buying in DC, Maryland, or Virginia.

What are the stages of buying a home? The homebuying process breaks into four stages: building a strategy before you tour anything, searching the market with a clear sense of local inventory and pricing, negotiating and moving through contract, and closing. Most costly mistakes happen in the first stage, before a buyer ever sees a house.

Before You Look at a Single Home, Build a Game Plan

The most important work happens before you tour anything. Srivatsaa breaks a real game plan into five pieces.

What's actually driving the move? Most of the time it comes down to what he calls the 5 Ds: diamonds, diapers, divorce, downsizing, or death.

What you don't want, plus your 3 to 5 must-haves. Those are your non-negotiables.

Your nice-to-haves. Mixing these in with your non-negotiables just muddies the search.

The 7/10 rule. Decide upfront whether you'd rather have the 10/10 house in a 7/10 location, or the reverse.

Which deadlines are locked in, like a lease ending, and which ones have room to move, like new furniture or a future renovation.

Money is usually the part people stress about most, and it settles fast once you answer two questions:

• Are you thinking in terms of purchase price, or monthly payment?
• Are you paying cash, or financing?

Cash removes the lender from the equation, which makes your offer look stronger to a seller and gets you to the closing table faster. Financing takes a few more steps, but it keeps more of your cash free for everything else.

Choosing an Agent and Getting Preapproved

Once you have a game plan, the next move is finding the right agent. Start with a referral from someone you trust, then look for an agent who specializes in the specific area you're buying into, not just the region broadly.

When you sit down with an agent you're considering, ask them three things:

1. What's your process for helping clients buy a home?
2. What are the top five mistakes buyers are making in this market right now?
3. How do you get paid?

The answers tell you a lot fast. An agent without a clear process is going to leave you guessing at every step, and if they can't explain their own compensation clearly, that tells you something about how they'll negotiate on your behalf when it counts.

Once you've picked someone, get preapproved before you look at a single home. Preapproval locks in your financial picture, and it needs to stay locked until closing. That means holding off on anything that could change that picture until the deal is done:

• New car
• Job change
• New credit card or payment plan, for anything

Any one of those can throw off your approval right when you need it most.

What's Actually For Sale in DC, Maryland, and Virginia

Behind what's actively listed, there's a layer of passive inventory: homes that would sell if the conditions were right, even though they're not on the market yet. In some places that passive inventory runs many times the size of what's actually listed, and a good agent can get you into some of it through off-market deals and pocket listings most buyers never hear about.

Before you start touring, talk to your agent about months of supply. That one number tells you how long it would take to sell everything currently on the market if nothing new came up for sale.

• Under 5 months: seller's market
• 5 to 6 months: balanced market
• Over 6 months: buyer's market

Here's what we're seeing in DC Metro: as of June 2026, the market sits at 2.7 months of supply, which puts us firmly in seller's market territory.

That number also shapes how a seller prices their home. A seller might price above what similar homes nearby have recently sold for (aspirational) to leave room for negotiating, or price right at where similar homes are closing (perceived market value) to reflect real conditions. Sometimes a seller prices deliberately low (event pricing) to create competition and spark a bidding war. Whichever one they're using changes how you should approach your own offer.

Touring Homes, Writing an Offer, and Getting Through Contract

After every showing, ask three questions:

1. What pricing strategy is the seller using?
2. Do you see yourself living here?
3. What's the one thing you'd change before making an offer?

That last question is arguably the most important one. Most buyers walk away from a home over something small and fixable, like a paint color or an outdated light fixture. Naming the one change you'd make before writing an offer can save a house that would've otherwise gotten crossed off the list when it might be a great fit.

When you're ready to write an offer, your agent handles three things: they draft it, they walk you through every term before you sign anything, and they submit and negotiate it on your behalf.

Once it's in, the seller can accept, reject, or counter it. Rejection is normal and usually comes with feedback you can use. Countering is the most common response, whether that means a higher price or the seller wanting a trade-off, like keeping the washer and dryer.

Once an offer's accepted, the home goes under contract, and this is where buyers start to get nervous. Three built-in outs exist for exactly this stage:

• The inspection contingency lets you walk away over a real problem the inspector finds, and it's also where requests for repairs come from.
• The loan contingency protects you if your financing falls through.
• The appraisal contingency confirms the home's value matches what you agreed to pay, and gives you room to renegotiate if the number comes in low.

Buyers who understand what these three are for tend to stay a lot calmer through the rest of the contract period. These outs exist so you're not stuck if something goes wrong.

The Final 48 Hours: What Closing Day Really Looks Like

There's real planning to do before closing day shows up:

• Handle your address change.
• Get the utilities switched over at the new place.
• Lock down your moving logistics early so you're not scrambling in the last week.

Then comes the final walkthrough, which confirms two things: the home is in the same shape it was in when you made your offer, and whatever repairs the seller agreed to actually got done.

The last 48 hours can feel financially intense, and that's not an exaggeration. Documents get signed, funds move, and keys change hands, all in a pretty short window. It's normal for that to feel like a lot.

This is where having an agent who's done this before really pays off. Catching a problem before closing day is a lot easier than catching it after.

None of this has to feel like guesswork once you know what's coming at each stage.

FAQ: The Homebuying Process, Step by Step

What are the 4 stages of buying a home?

Strategy, Search, Contract, and Close. Most buyer mistakes happen in the Strategy stage, before a single home is toured.

What is months of supply and why does it matter to buyers?

It measures how long it would take to sell every home currently on the market if no new listings came on. Under 5 months typically favors sellers, 5 to 6 is balanced, and over 6 favors buyers. DC Metro sat at 2.7 months as of June 2026.

What are the three contingencies in a home purchase contract?

The inspection contingency, the loan contingency, and the appraisal contingency. Each gives a buyer a built-in way to renegotiate or walk away if something doesn't check out.

Should I get preapproved before touring homes?

Yes. Preapproval locks in your financial picture and strengthens your offer once you find a home, but it needs to stay locked, so avoid new debt, credit changes, or job changes until closing.

Ready to start the process the right way, with a real game plan before you tour a single home? Edward Slavis and the team can walk you through what to expect, step by step, in DC, Maryland, or Virginia.