Love Buying a Home series – Week 9

The “Love Buying Your Home” series will take you step-by-step through the entire home-buying process — from finding a buyer’s agent to settlement day, and even to maintaining your home after you’re all moved in. Every first-time buyer will find this information-packed series easy to follow and understand. Make sure to tune in for the next few weeks!

Congratulations! You found a home and now it’s time to do our due diligence.

During the under contract phase of your home purchase, my job is to manage all the parties, make sure we are adhering to the timelines in the contract, and communicate with all parties so everything goes as smoothly as possible.

There’s a lot happening during this phase of the home selling process, much of which is behind the scenes.

My goal is to help make it as transparent to you as possible. That means every step of the way, I’ll do my best to prepare you for what’s coming up and also be sure to close the loop with updates as we go through each item on our list of to-dos.

We now have more people involved other than just you and me.  We have the sellers, the sellers’s agent, title company, lender, and inspectors—working together to make sure the terms of the contractor completed.

One of the first “big” steps is your home inspection.

Due Diligence

During your “due diligence” time period, I recommend that you have a licensed home inspector come in and do a deep dive into the property and lay out everything that is wrong with the home, or things that are near the end of their life (i.e. a water heater). You will likely get a long list of items, just remember THIS IS NORMAL. Even with new construction.

Here are some items I recommend we look into, outside of what the inspector will check, during due diligence

• Building Code/Zoning Compliance
• Rental of Property
• Hazardous Waste and Toxic Substances
• Radon Gas
• Surveying and Staking
• Home Warranty Plans
• Flood Zone and Insurance
• Homeowners Insurance
• Title Issues/Homeowner’s Association
• Physical Condition
• Square Footage/ Acreage
• Utility Services
• Water
• Geological Conditions
• Mold
• Housing Compliance
• Property Taxes
• Income Tax/Legal Consequences
• Energy Efficiency

Phew! It may seem overwhelming… but don’t worry! I got this!

Financing and Appraisal

Both locking in your mortgage and the bank’s appraisal of your home is very important at this point so that you can move forward with your financing.

I’ll help you lock in your loan with your loan, help you pick the best interest rate option available to you.  I’ll also explain why you need an appraisal at this point in the process, how to get one, what happens at the appraisal, and of, course, the results—what the bank says your home is worth!

Your appraisal is the check and balance to make sure the home you’re buying is worth at least the amount that the seller agreed to sell it to you for. If you are purchasing a home for $500,000, we want to make sure it is not only worth $450,000. A bank or lender will only provide a mortgage for a certain percentage of the home’s value.

Your loan officer has already pre-qualified YOU and your finances but now it’s got to approve the home you’re about to buy.

Does that help clear some things up? There will be a lot more small steps for my and your loan officer to follow through on- but a lot of them are case specific.

Keep coming back here each and every week to learn more about the home buying process and reach out to me through email at mccall@youragentmccall.com anytime with questions about how what you are learning applies to YOUR specific situation.  Just like every real estate agent is unique, so is every buyer and I’d love to help you apply what you are learning in this series to YOUR home buying plans.