Buying Guide

Tip #1: Research Is The Key To Discovery
Home sellers won’t call you to buy their maintenance-free home with a wonderful mortgage. You have to find the gems yourself! Only by reading available materials, talking to friends and experts, and spending time looking at different homes, schools, and neighborhoods will you end up with your American dream. Avoid the nightmares by learning how best to buy and maintain a home.

Tip #2: Make A Plan And Get Pre-Approved
Developing a home buying plan can help you focus on the important factors and organize the entire process. You may even want to use a binder to organize your house hunting plan. Loan pre-approval helps you determine the home price you can afford and presents you as a good buying prospect to the seller when they are reviewing multiple offers. You do not want to find your dream home just to find out the seller will not consider your offer because you have not prepared. Sellers love to see the pre-approval letter when an offer is presented to them. Planning your actions and getting pre-approved will keep you out of the panic mode and allow you to take advantage of opportunities. A thorough plan will save both time and money!

Tip #3: Value, Value, Value
The days of 10-20% annual investment appreciation have passed. In today’s real estate market, you’re looking at a much slower growth while protecting your investment against the possibilities of falling prices, high ARM interest rates and corporate layoffs that may affect your home values. The classic rule of “buying the worst house in the best neighborhood” still applies at times. If you can afford to buy with the intentions to improve, you can customize the home to fit your needs and wants. In this instance, the saying, “make money buying a home, not selling one,” should keep you focused on the long-term importance of the purchasing price for those with the funds for home improvement.

Tip #4: Create A Top 10 List Of Amenities
When shopping for a home, list the features (basement, fenced-in yard, garage, 2 baths etc.) that are most important to you in deciding on which home to buy. Understanding your personal criteria early on will save you from shopping for inappropriate homes and may keep you from buying a home on a whim. As you search homes, your criteria may change a bit but figuring out early what those changes are will greatly help in your future search and allow you to find your dream home more efficiently without wasting your time.

Tip #5: Find A Real Estate Professional To Guide You
The 2 biggest misconceptions with the consumer is that there is a charge to the buyer to use our services and we always work for the seller.

Although the latter used to be true for most if not all agents, nowadays, there are buyers agents and there are sellers agents. When we work with you, the buyer, we represent you and you are afforded confidentiality, honesty and due diligence. All services to our buyers are FREE. We still get paid by the sellers Real Estate Company but we represent you, our buyer, in the transaction.

As your buyers agent, we will write your purchase agreement, advise you of the current market conditions and offer professional opinions of offer pricing, present offers, manage the transaction from start to finish. we will be available to you to answer your questions and keeping you informed and up to date throughout the process of your purchase. Your satisfaction is our priority.

Tip #6: Sign A Contract That Protects You
Make sure that the contract you put on a house allows you to arrange financing,  inspect the home and negotiate any problems that you uncover. Ensuring that the contract you sign will minimize potential legal battles will let you swim in your new pool with your family and neighbors instead of with the sharks.

Tip #7: Put Yourself In The Seller’s Shoes
You are about to make one of the most important decisions that will affect both your life and the life of the seller. If you take time to understand the reasons the seller bought the home, their reasons for selling, and the home improvements they have or have not made, you’ll be in a better position to evaluate the home and negotiate a better deal. In the end, the home buying process excludes the professionals and comes down to the individuals buying and selling the home. A closer look at the seller may help you in deciding whether and for how much to buy a particular home.

Tip #8: Develop A Mortgage Shopping Chart
One of the biggest decisions to make before putting a contract on a home is how to finance the purchase. There are 10,000 lenders competing for your mortgage business. The days of simply walking into the community bank and negotiating with the loan department manager are over. Today, you can apply for a loan over the Internet or even use a mortgage broker to shop for your loan with hundreds of lenders. When choosing a lender, you want to avoid apples to oranges contrasts by comparing fixed rates to fixed rates, not fixed to ARM’s. Create a chart that lists different types of loans, fees, and at least five mortgage providers (including a mortgage broker).

Tip #9: Get A Quality Home Inspection
Although it is hard to believe, more people pay for inspections before buying used cars than when making the biggest investment of their lives – their homes. Paying for a qualified home inspection before you buy a home isn’t just spending “a little extra” for peace of mind; it’s absolutely essential for anyone who doesn’t want to spend thousands of dollars for repairs.

Tip#10: Consider A Home Protection Plan
To protect both you as a buyer, as well as the seller, it is a good idea to purchase a home protection plan.  What exactly is it? A home warranty, or home protection plan, is a service contract, normally for one year, which protects homeowners against the cost of unexpected repairs or replacement of their major systems and appliances that break down due to normal wear and tear. A negotiable contract between the buyers and sellers which does not overlap or replace homeowner’s insurance policy, this type of warranty can save the new homeowner lots of headaches, as well as put seller’s fears to rest. The warranty covers mechanical breakdowns, while insurance typically repairs the related damage. For example: if a hot water heater burst and destroyed a wall in your home, the warranty would repair the water heater and your insurance would pay to fix the wall.