10 Tips: to ensure a hassle free home buying experience

10 Tips: Thinking of buying a home? Be prepared

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.

1. Check your credit score. Your score will impact the interest rate on your mortgage in a big way.
2. 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.
3. Get pre-approved for your mortgage. A pre-approval letter from a mortgage lender is a requirement in a loan market like this.
4. Don’t borrow more than you can afford.
5. Search for the best possible rate and loan terms.
6. 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.
7. Remember those closing costs.
8. Factor in other big expenses.
9. Work with a buyer’s agent. *
10. 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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The lazy agents way to collect a paycheck

I was working another post and in my research came across a comment from Marc Davison (1000 Watt Consulting Blog) that really fit the exact phrasing for what I was trying to convey. ?Mmm, when did not having to work hard become the path to success? Oh yeah, 1997-2005. I wish we can scroll back time. I wish I could sit around and collect paychecks by doing little or nothing.?

The comment above was in response to a post regarding implementation of Web 2.0 services by Reactors, or lack there of. Things like this blog for example. Yes there are quite a few of us that GET IT especially when it comes to Tampa Bay Real Estate. Blogging and Real Estate seems to be a bit more lofty of a goal for too few. We, are a rare minority in the scheme of National Real Estate statistics. Ok, so where am I going with this ?

Well, besides the whole Real Estate Technology thing, I think one of the larger problems with our industry is the lack of oversight by the Brokers, much the same has transpired with the mortgage industry. No way your saying?.say it isn?t true ?

Let me share these two small stories with you to help explain my point.

1. A local Buyers Agent works with an out of town client (out of town meaning out of State or out of the Country) who wants to invest in a large home and has a set price in mind. The agent locates a suitable home and helps to buy the home at the full asking price of the seller. Where this gets interesting is that the agent never attempted to negotiate for a lower price for the buyer. This agent in doing this deal just added to the entire housing industry mess we are in. How ? because this agent was truly un-ethical, greedy and lazy to boot. In the current market, not even attempting to negotiate for your client to gain a better price is shameless, regardless of how much money the person has.

2. A seller negotiates with a client to list their vacation home at a reduced rate of 2% if the deal is split between buyer and seller agents. So this agent takes a picture from the client and lists the home on the MLS and waits for the buyers to call. What?s wrong here ? The Agent took the clients picture (which by the way was a very bad shot of the home). The agent did not take any pictures of their own or even suggest to the client that they would need additional pictures to help advertise the listing. There also, was no mention or suggestion of Virtual Tour or brochures (oh, I think the client did the brochures?) and no web marketing. Meaning the listing was not advertised anywhere except the MLS, the Brokers site and Realtor.com (with-1 photo). So now the home has little to no chance of getting a buyer in the current market.

Our industry has gotten a huge black eye lately and agents like these don?t help make it any better. A lot of the agents are the ones that are complaining that Web 2.0 technologies are too hard or complicated. They are the same lazy ones that act as I mentioned above. Those of us that really go the extra mile for our clients continue to get maligned in the media because of our industries lack of oversight in cases like this. And who is to blame ? Mostly the same lazy brokers that are allowing this to happen. Either they are too lazy to educate their teams or they have no clue? It?s time that our industry started to gain a better hand at managing the ethical ways in which we conduct business.

Our clients are getting smarter and more savvy at technology. I think it?s time for an over haul of our Realtor s ethics pledge, or rather the methodology to ensure that the agents and or brokers that allow this are sent packing.

If your a home owner that has had a bad experience like this or even an agent, speak up.

• Do you agree ?

• Disagree ?

• Maybe you have a better way of addressing this ?

• Inquiring minds would like to know ?

Please leave a comment.

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