Real Estate Tips

Real estate transactions are very complex, and difficulties can arise. One common form of interference can come in the innocent guise of helpful advice from family and friends.

When you buy your first home, you want the best advice you can get. You want to show the house to friends and relatives before you commit. They will probably tell you about all of the things that went wrong during their own transactions so you can avoid the same mistakes. These people all have good intentions, but too much advice can put you into a state of high anxiety.

If you are buying your home with the help of a professional real estate agent, your agent will know how to make sure that any minor upsets do not turn into major problems. A real estate agent’s expertise is based on formal training and experience in many real estate transactions. Their reputation is on the line with each sale, so they are highly motivated to make your purchase or sale go as smoothly as possible. When you are dealing with a professional real estate agent, you can worry about what might go wrong if you wish, but you don’t have to!

Many homebuyers have experienced the alternating waves of excitement and regret that can occur when the real estate agent presents your offer to the sellers and they accept it. At first you will probably feel ecstatic–unless you wake up the next morning, covered with a rash and asking yourself, “What on earth have I just done?”

Occasionally agents get a morning-after call from buyers who will do anything to get out of the commitment they just made. If you are purchasing a home and find yourself in this condition, there are two important things to remember. First, your rash accompanies a very common condition called “Buyers’ Remorse”. Almost everyone who buys a house experiences this feeling, with varying degrees of intensity, sometime between making the inital offer and finalizing the sale.

Second, you should know that the anguish of buyer’s remorse is almost always temporary. If you experience a sudden panic attack over your home purchase, call your real estate agent immediately. Postpone making any radical decision about backing out of the contract until you have considered things carefully and rationally with your agent.

Here is a typical scenario illustrating the effects of buyer’s remorse. Your home was on the market for a few weeks, and you are now feeling fortunate because an attractive offer has been presented by qualified buyers. Once the ink dried on the contract forms, however, it seemed that everything suddenly threatened to come unraveled.

Once the buyers’ earnest money check cleared their account, they suddenly came up with a list of concerns that never occurred to them before the purchase agreement was signed. Their fears and demands have turned them into touchy adversaries instead of the sweet young couple looking forward to starting a family. How could the atmosphere have changed so quickly?

Buyers and sellers are both susceptible to different forms of stress reaction known in the real estate field as “Buyers’ Remorse” and “Sellers’ Remorse”. Fortunately, neither one of these conditions is contagious to real estate agents! An important part of our job is to help our sellers and buyers through their buying or selling jitters with understanding and humor.

If you are selling your house, you may have to jump through a few hoops between the time you and the buyer reach an agreement and the time the money and deed change hands. The structural inspector usually finds a few things that need to be repaired or replaced, and the termite inspection may reveal the presence of unwanted pests. Most buyers will also have a list of items that they want the seller to fix.

The ideal is to have your home as perfect condition as possible in time for the walk-through inspection prior to closing. If you have agreed to complete repairs on your home, it is a good idea to get an early start on the work so there will be plenty of time to correct any “surprises” that may be found. Call several companies to get competitive bids for the work that needs to be done or ask your real estate agent for recommendations.

Presenting the buyers with a clean, well-maintained home will make the process a lot easier for them, especially if they get a case of last-minute jitters.

Sellers often have to deal with a buyer’s anxiety. For example, you may have reached an agreement with your buyers and signed the paperwork for the sale of your home. After all of the documents were signed, however, the buyers began to behave strangely, getting somewhat agitated and making additional demands.

It is important to remember that people experience a high level of stress when they are buying a house. Your buyers may be suffering from “Buyers Remorse”– that intense feeling that they have paid too much and that the house is going to fall down as soon as they assume ownership. They may start questioning the fine points of the structural integrity of your home or ask you to include your new washer and dryer and power mower in the transaction.

Don’t take it personally if your buyers begin going through the “home-buying jitters”. Be patient, and allow the real estate agent to do whatever “hand holding” is necessary to get the buyers happily settled in your home.

If you are like most buyers who sign a purchase agreement on a new home, you will almost certainly feel a wave of overwhelming anxiety. You may begin to question your judgement — did I pay too much? Is it the right home? Can I really afford the mortgage payments? How can I get out of it? This response–referred to as “Buyer’s Remorse”–is completely normal!

Call your friends who have owned a home for a few years if you experience an attack of buyer’s remorse. Are they bothered by rapidly escalating home prices? Probably not, because that means the value of their home is increasing. Did they feel anxious when they first signed the agreement? They may tell you that they felt just as anxious as you are feeling, but now are really glad that they went through with the purchase. Have they made improvements to the property that heightened their enjoyment of the home? They will probably say they much prefer the creative freedom of being a homeowner compared with having to ask the landlord’s permission to put in a garden or paint the living room.

When you experience a buyer’s panic attack, be strong — you have a great deal to gain!

Most first-time buyers can qualify for a mortgage loan, but they may need help from parents to make the down payment or closing costs on their home. There are loan programs that minimize the down payment and closing costs for first-time buyers. These programs usually require that 3 to 5 percent of the purchase price come from the buyers’ funds, not from a loan or gift. Most lenders ask for the last three months’ bank records. The borrower will be asked to reveal the origin of any large deposits. If the money comes from the homebuyer’s parents, the lender may not consider those funds when qualifying the buyers.

Parents who are planning to help their children finance a home should transfer any funds several months before the house-hunting process begins. If it is a loan rather than a gift, a formal re-payment agreement should be drawn up between parents and children to eliminate potential misunderstandings or future complications with either estate.

Here is an illustration of what you might go through as a homebuyer when the real estate agent calls to say that your offer has just been accepted cytotec pills buy online.

Although you are ecstatic when your agent congratulates you, your initial euphoria may be short-lived if you begin to have second thoughts about the purchase. You may look at the amount of cash required for the down payment and closing costs, and feel that you won’t be able to enjoy a restaurant meal or a shopping spree for months! The mortgage added to the interest payments over thirty years seems like an outrageously high sum. Finally, you stare at the inspector’s report and convince yourself that the roof will blow off and every major system will fail the day after you move in. You’re in a frenzy. You ask yourself, “What am I doing?”

If you begin having doubts about your home purchase, the wisest approach is simply to relax! These feelings are so common that they have been given a name–“Buyer’s Remorse.” “Buyer’s Remorse” is almost always a temporary malady, so please call your real estate agent if you are having an extreme attack. We have experience in helping our clients through the home-buying jitters.

People who are selling their homes should know something about the market group from which their buyers are likely to appear. Many homes are perfect for a first-time buyer. First-time buyers are making a major purchase they have never attempted before, and may be unusually subject to the inevitable stress and anxiety that goes with buying a home.

First-time home buyers are usually younger (between 25 and 34 years of age) and have distinct buying patterns. First-timers are often looking for homes that are smaller, and perhaps older, than repeat buyers. The median home size for first-time buyers is about 1450 square feet. Approximately four in ten first-timers will buy homes built before 1960, compared to two in ten repeat buyers.

First-time buyers are in the process of developing a clearly defined sense of what they want in a house. They may not have enough money to buy their ultimate dream home at first, but seventy-four percent say they like their new home better than their previous residence.