Chapter 5: Looking For The Perfect Home
Before doing anything else, decide on what city or neighborhood you and your family want to reside in. Remember, location is everything!
You can gain access to demographical information and data on any metropolitan area through web sites like Zillow or Yahoo! Real Estate. What you are looking for are signs of vitality in the economy: healthy neighborhoods have both young and old couples, high income family and low unemployment.
Community-level thinking
Choose an area with good schools and a high teacher to student ratio. Also, check graduation rates. Whether or not you have school-age children, a good school district raises the value of the homes in your area. This will benefit you when it is time to sell.
Find out also what is happening in real estate in your area. Are homes selling close to the asking price? This will tell you whether or not the area is desirable. HomeGain will provide you with free information on the sale of homes in your area. Your REALTOR® can also let you know what is happening locally with realty. Also, if you are flexible, try to hunt for you new home during the off-season. You will have less house hunting competition during the colder months of the year.
Next, visit HomeGain, Zillow or Yahoo! Real Estate and find properties that match up with your requirements. You can also try Bargain Network Homes for foreclosed houses. These houses are very affordable, but are limited and will probably need a fixer-upper.
Do not be too restrictive in your search. For instance, ask for properties with a price range 10% above and 10% below your range. Add a ten-mile buffer to your location search to be more inclusive. Save and print the information on any house that catches your attention and bookmark the results for future retrieval. Also, grab the listing code for your REALTOR®. They will take care of the rest.
Tips for first-time buyers
First time buyers should pay special attention to condominiums and cooperatives. They tend to sell for 15% to 20% less than comparable homes that are detached. So, you do end up paying less money for more living space.
With condos, the owner has complete ownership of their unit. This unit can be an apartment or a townhouse. Owners then pay a shared for the upkeep of share areas like the lobby, laundry room or pool area. The risk in condo ownership is the rise in common charges. These prices can rise on a regular basis or for sudden repairs like broken boilers and other emergency repairs.
When looking at condos to buy, try to get information related to the common charges and how much they have changed during previous years. Also, find out what percentage of owners are renting or living in their condos, you will generally find both. Renters will not maintain the common areas in the same way that owners will and this will affect you as well.
Co-ops are especially popular in metropolitan areas, especially in New York City . Co-ops are run by a corporation where every owner is a shareholder. Another way of putting this is that every owner is a partner in the investment of the building and not so much an outright owner of a unit.
Monthly maintenance fees for co-ops are usually higher than for condos but buying prices are usually lower. The downside of co-ops is that the board has to vote to approve new owners. They also try to dissuade people from renting out their units even if they have to move out. You should check on trends with the monthly fees of any co-op you are considering buying and on what percentage of units are lived in by owners.
Let's get down to details
When visiting homes, carry with you a notebook and a camera that is digital or Polaroid, this way, you will remember details better. Your REALTOR® will get you descriptions of the houses, property tax assessments, lot information and asking prices. You can then record the details when you visit these homes. Think about the views from the window and heating costs as well when you visit homes.
Remember: Do not scratch houses off of your list quickly if they do not meet your initial expectations. Remember that you can always add to the home or update it. The asking price for a home is a starting point for some negotiation. Offer and counteroffers will take place until you both happen upon something that's agreeable to both parties.
- Find Foreclosed Homes at 50% Off
- Find and compare REALTORS® for free
- Need a mortgage? Choose from up to 4 different offers.
Chapter 6: Close The Agreement
