Welcome to the 4Sale2Closed.com weekly read hosted by Doing It Local.  The content is provided by REALTOR® John (Jack) Rodican provided to you, the reader, as an overview of the topic discussed.  No legal advice is inferred or implied and any matters of law should be referred to a licensed attorney.  (Sponsored Content)

“I want to buy a house”. Six words when put together make up one of the biggest decisions a person or family can make. In today’s blog we will look at a typical home buying process and show you what to expect.

First things first. Select the REALTOR® whom you are comfortable with and make sure they can answer your questions, refer you to qualified professionals, and be your advocate (for example, I diligently represent my buying customers making sure they get the most for their money and time). Once a REALTOR® is chosen, I know I always always always encourage my buying customer to get at the very least a preapproval for their mortgage. Honestly, if someone isn’t willing to obtain a preapproval the likelihood of selecting a home for purchase may be significantly less than someone who has obtained a preapproval. Why? It confirms the buyer customer’s seriousness in the process. As you read this you may thinking to yourself “but what about my credit- won’t it take a hit if I apply?” and the short answer is while the inquiry will show up there are much worse events that can affect a credit score than a preapproval for a mortgage. My network of lenders will get the job done; but some buying customers already have a mortgage preapproval from their credit union or bank or other lender directly and that is okay as well. The lender will ask for your name, birth date, social security number, and verifiable income. I cannot tell you how many potential buyers over estimate their yearly income and in turn lower their buying ability. Luckily there are loan programs available for most situations and being honest up front will negate most headaches & heartaches later. So, forward we go. Now we have our preapproval. Let the fun begin! House shopping time!! As an experienced REALTOR®, I ask my buying customers several questions so I can find the properties best suited to their desires. These questions include: Where do you want to live?, How many bedrooms would you like?, What size home do you need?, What size property is most desirable?, and other Must Haves/Hope it Has/Better Not Haves. Not every property is for everyone so having this information helps to make the most of a buying customer’s time. It doesn’t benefit my buying customer to schedule a few hours for showings and then see properties which are not even close to their desired features. Now, to state the obvious, and honesty is the backbone my business and life, so I’m just going to come right out and say it: sometimes a buyer has so many “Must Haves” and features requests that there may not be a property available in their price range. It is imperative that your REALTOR® explain to you, as I do, how mill rates determine taxes, any special assessments, and demonstrate how a home in town A costs $ _____ at _____ size with these features then in town B it costs _______. Now that we have our search parameters set, I give my customers access to the Multiple Listing Service, which one of the areas REALTORS® find properties, through my dedicated portal (https://jackrodican.smartmls.mlsmatrix.com/Matrix/Public/) and give you the ability to search available properties and compare market inventory! I am a firm believer in no secrets and no surprises and I want to make sure that all my buying customers have access to all the data and information available. Once you take a look around and see what may interest you or decide to see properties which I select for you we find a day or evening and a time which works best for you. I suggest seeing 6-8 properties per showing days and we schedule to spend 15-30 mins at each property. Now that isn’t to say that we may walk into one property and know right away “this isn’t the one”; when that happens we just move on. The property for you is out there- together we will find it! Don’t get discouraged and just enjoy the process. Once we find your property, we make an offer to purchase and begin negotiations. Some properties are priced to sell, priced to market value, and some, let’s be honest, just overpriced. We submit our offer, with a deposit of 1% to 3.5%, for the property to what we believe the value is. I know, and you know, we are always out to get the most for the least but I caution “low ball” offers. By “low ball” offers I mean an offer to purchase that is insulting to the seller. For example, a home may be listed for $200,000 and it appears to have been well maintained with updated appliances and central air and newer furnace and comparables of a similar property are $210,000- we would not offer $110,000 for the property and expect to even be counter offered. Once we make an offer and it is accepted we move into the inspection phase. Inspections are done to identify potential problems with the property you are buying. Home inspections are the opinion of the inspector and good home inspectors are worth every penny they charge. Usually inspection cost depends on the size of the home and the number of out buildings (garages/sheds). A buyer can use any home inspector they choose (if needed I can provide a list from the CT Licensed Home Inspector database or recommend a few past customers have used). Well, here comes a moment of truth: The home inspection is not a slot machine for discounts. Again, the home inspection is not a slot machine to renegotiate the price. We utilize a home inspection to identify safety concerns and material defects which we then ask the seller to repair. Does the seller have to fix everything which we ask? No. Would we like them to? Absolutely. What happens if the seller doesn’t want to fix anything? We have options! First we can ask for a reduction in the price. Second we can have your attorney assist and we determine that we had an unfavorable inspection and decide not to proceed with the purchase. Or, the third option is to proceed with the purchase unchanged. Okay, we have a mortgage, we have a house, and we have a favorable inspection. What now? We diligently pursue the mortgage commitment. The Bank orders an appraisal (which sometimes the banks pay for you but usually the buyer pays with cost depending on the bank) and the buyer submits as quickly as possible any required documents such as bank statements, pay stubs, or other financially relevant paperwork. The nice thing today is almost everything can be scanned and emailed or faxed making the process streamlined and efficient. Don’t have a mortgage broker yet? Not to worry, I have a few brokers I‘ve worked with (who I receive no compensation from for referring customers) and have seen amazing results. My website is www.4Sale2Closed.com and as I mentioned in last week’s read closed is when a transaction completes and ownership changes. Granted it is officially really done when the paperwork is filed at town hall but as they say tomatoe tomato potatoe potato. Start to finish the time from offer to close can be 30-60 days with the goal to close as soon as the bank gives the “a-ok” and attorneys are available.

I’d like to thank you for taking the time to read this week’s Real Estate Info and please email any questions to JR@JohnRodicanHomes.com