Confused? There are an awful lot of choices to make whenever you buy a home, whether it’s your first home or your fourth. But here are some guidelines to follow to make your transaction easier.
Finding the right home starts with finding a good lender. As part of the pre-approval process The Fisk Team and Forward & Reverse Mortgage will review any down payment assistance programs you may qualify for. We are the down payment experts!
We will help you determine how much home you can afford, how much money you will need for down payment and closing costs, and what your monthly payments will be. A lender can pre-approve you for a loan and issue an approval letter. This is invaluable when you are negotiating on a home! If more than one comparable offer has been received the seller will always choose the buyer who has financing in place.
The next step is determining which neighborhoods you prefer within your budget. Since the first rule of real estate is location, location, location, we always recommend choosing the best community you can afford even if it means choosing a somewhat smaller home, as long as the home will accommodate your lifestyle comfortably. Then when you are ready to sell the home and move on you will be assured of the maximum appreciation in the city.
Once we have identified several neighborhoods our advanced computer systems allows us to customize your search to fit your special needs. We can search by size, number of bedrooms & bathrooms, school zones, lot size, pools, fireplaces, floor plan style, etc. We will preview the homes for you, and only show you the ones we know are the best on the market for price and condition. And don’t worry, you will know the home when you walk into it! It will feel like your space.
Next we need to negotiate an offer with the seller. The two most crucial points in the contract will be the selling price and the closing date. To find the proper offer price we will do a market analysis on the neighborhood for you and determine how much other similar homes have been selling for.
It’s okay to offer a seller less than the listed price, but don’t expect him to consider a ridiculous amount. Sellers can be insulted by “low-ball” offers and retaliate in kind. If you’re not competing with another buyer a good strategy is to offer an amount that is slightly less than what the seller was expecting to get but is close enough that the seller gets more nervous about losing a possible sale than about the sales price. But keep in mind that each seller is different and the strategy can change based on market conditions.
When preparing an offer take into consideration how you will feel if you lose the house to another buyer. Sometimes trying to save a couple thousand dollars (just a few dollars a month) is not worth losing the home of your dreams.
After the offer is accepted it is time to choose a home inspector. We always recommend having one, even on new construction. They will go through the home checking all the major systems. They will find defects a normal buyer could not reasonably expect to discover and often the seller doesn’t know about them either. A few hundred dollars invested here can save you thousands.
The lender will also be sending out an appraiser. The appraiser’s job is to make sure you are not paying more than fair market value for the property.
Then it’s time to work on turning on the utilities, registering for schools, etc. (relocation checklist) while the lender is processing your final loan paperwork.
About four days prior to the recording date we will do a final walk through inspection of the home to make sure there’s been no new damage and that any negotiated repairs have been completed.
We will go to the escrow office or meet with a mobile notary to sign the final loan documents and provide a cashier’s check for the balance of the down payment and closing costs.
The day the property is recorded at the county recorder’s office is the day you get your keys. This is when title is actually transferred from the seller’s name to yours, and it’s time to open a bottle of champagne to celebrate!
