10 Tips: to ensure a hassle free home buying experience
November 10, 2008
This is an excellent article that was written for the Sunday – November 8,2008 edition of the St. Petersburg Times News Paper.
Ok, so no one can can guarantee a hassle free experience when it comes to mortgages especially in today’s climate. However, as a home buyer in the Tampa Real Estate Market, or just about anywhere for that matter one can definitely make life much easier on themselves and help to ensure a smooth home buying process by checking on a few details up front. Then when you and your buyers agent locate the home of your dreams the process will go much faster. If your new home research is here in Tampa, then the Future Home Team at Greater Tampa Bay Real Estate can also assist in ironing out any last minute details or issues you might have questions with.
So here’s a quick synopsis of the 10 Tips to help ensure Buyers are prepared.
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Check your credit score. Your score will impact the interest rate on your mortgage in a big way.
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Seek help if you’re new at this. First-time home buyers’ programs can help people who have credit problems or limited savings to find loans with better interest rates than they might otherwise find.
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Get pre-approved for your mortgage. A pre-approval letter from a mortgage lender is a requirement in a loan market like this.
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Don’t borrow more than you can afford.
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Search for the best possible rate and loan terms.
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Beware of toxic loans. Be careful with adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, that will cause your mortgage payment to jump to a potentially un-affordable level in a few years.
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Remember those closing costs.
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Factor in other big expenses.
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Work with a buyer’s agent. *
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Don’t break the bank. Make sure you have money left in your savings account after you buy.
*The experienced Future Home Team at Greater Tampa Bay Real Estate can assist you with the 10 Step Process. As your Buyers Agent they will represent you from the start of your search, and ensure that you are 100% satisfied and happy in your new home.
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Central Florida First Time Home Buyers Workshops
Buy your home in Florida NOW
January 21, 2008
I wrote a post back in early November last year, Is now the right time to buy your Florida home ? The comments then are just as apropos now as they were then. However, I have some interesting recent data to add to this that lends even more support and definitively answers the question.
After reviewing the search word index over the last 45 days or so, I see a pattern that is emerging. That of many blog readers inquiring if it is safe to buy in Florida ? It would also appear that lot?s of buyers or should I say prospective buyers, have been sitting on the fence and many have been typing in the search engines all types of long tail questions that all center on the condition of the Florida Housing Market.
A lot of activity in the media and in and around the State itself is reason enough for a lot of the speculation and confusion among would be buyers.
On the one side you have the media that continues to projecting doom and gloom on the economy. You can expect this will continue throughout the year. But hey it?s an election year, why do you think this gets tons of press every day ?
The latest scare out on Friday was from a report published this month in the Journal of the American Planning Association. This report talks about Baby Boomers and the Housing bubble, with yet another spin. The original report was published early in the week and then was carried by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday and by Friday it was over on Inman’s Blog. This latest scare says that the housing bubble now pails in comparison to what will happen when the Baby Boomers stop buying houses.
Right now there is so much speculation out there on the national markets. However, the one thing that is verifiable right here and now, in the Greater Tampa Florida Bay Area it?s time to buy a house now.
If you continue to sit on the fence you will lose a valuable opportunity to get a great deal at a mortgage rate that you will most likely not see again for some time to come.
Yes you will continue to hear negative things in the press. The economy has issues, and if the fed lowers the borrowing rate too-much it will spook the investing community and then Mortgage Rates will go up, not down.
Will the price of housing continue to move down ? Possibly, but there is opportunity a plenty right now and it is a true buyers market in Florida. If you wait, you then have to weigh the risk of a larger mortgage vs the small incremental price reduction you might see by waiting it out.
Call your local Realtor and ask them. Heck just click on the MLS link on our site (at the top of the page – looks like the one right below this paragraph) and you can search the entire State of Florida, take a look at the wonderful opportunities that await you in our great state.