Real Estate Blog

You’ve found your dream house and the next few days ’til your appointment, you are pumped up with anticipation. Showing day comes - yahoo! You jump into your car and drive to meet your real estate destiny. Traffic cooperates and everything is zipping right along until you pull up to the curb.

Uh-oh, what is this? The house looks much smaller, the driveway is narrow with big cracks running through the now-gray asphalt, the greenish-brown lawn’s decorative border is weaved with the yellow heads of dandelions and other hearty weeds.

What the ____? The pictures didn’t look like that online. How did this happen? Let’s rewind.

It starts innocently enough. You get a promotion at work and it’s enabled you to afford to buy a house. You go online to view properties and then - bada bing, bada bang - your home-buying quest has become a part-time job. You look online at so many websites, so many photos, dizzying virtual tours and house descriptions.

You’ve done this now for the past month, remaining anonymous and filling out forms with bogus names and phone numbers to be able to get to the good stuff - those coveted listings for sale. You feel you’ve got a good handle for the prices of houses where you’re looking and you’re just waiting for the right buy; the golden ticket in the sea of gold-foiled offerings.

And then one day, you open your email and find the contents beneath the wrapper to be delicious. You call to schedule an appointment to see the house - this could be the one. You make an appointment with the real estate agent and mark the date in your Blackberry.

“Cut!” Rebecca, real estate blogger and director, interrupts the narrator. “OK, let’s rewind, back up and edit this film. Beginning from the scene where you’re filling out forms online. We can bring one of the main characters into this scene right now, a real estate agent. Let’s put the real estate agent at the office on the phone with the home buyer,” she says emphatically.

“OK good. Now let’s add some more lighting and turn off the dimmer switch. Good, now let’s reshoot this scene … places … and … action,” Rebecca commands.

Narrator: ”You’ve done this now for the past month, looked at listings online. You’ve engaged in the assistance of a local real estate agent, who has added you to her real estate listing feed, which is tied directly to the Multiple Listing Service. You are now receiving notification every day in your email of new listings that come onto the market.

“You’ve got a good handle on the price ranges because of the market condition reports delivered to your email inbox each month by your real estate agent. A few listings that have been emailed have recently caught your eye. You also found a listing on a few websites that you’d like to check out. You send them over to your agent, explaining what you like about these real estate listings.”

“Your local real estate agent goes to the houses and previews the listings for you. One of the listings is much smaller than the photos, the dimensions were missing on the description - scratch that off the list. The second listing needs major updates to appeal to your tastebuds - updates you don’t have the money for. The third listing is, well … the agent said the neglect is so prevalent you’d better bring some tissues ’cause you might shed a tear or two.”

Home buyer: “OK, well I guess we’ll keep looking.”

Narrator: ”The thing is, you’re looking for a decent house with a moderate price tag. Prices are not cheap in your part of town and even though they’ve come down, you don’t want to stretch yourself thin. You’re almost ready to quit this house-hunting search and wait, and then your real estate agent calls. There’s a new listing that you have the opportunity to look at before it comes on the market. It’s in your price range, has great features and your real estate agent has already previewed it.

“This could be your foil-wrapped golden ticket.

“The next few days ’til your appointment, you are pumped up with anticipation. Showing day comes - yahoo! You jump into your car and drive to meet your real estate destiny. Traffic cooperates and everything is zipping right along. You pull up to the curb, step out of the car and walk up the wide, black-topped driveway, past the cropped green grass bordered by bright yellow daylilies, irises and asters. You open the door, where your agent greets you as you tour the digs that will be your new home.”

Director: ”Cut! That’s a wrap. Everyone take a break and we’ll meet back at 5:15 p.m. for the closing scene of How to kick real estate ass-umptions to the curb. Great job everybody.”

Posted by Rebecca D. Levinson

Continued here:
How to kick real estate ass-umptions to the curb

Are you in the market to purchase a house, but dreading dipping your feet into the water? In Part I of this two-part series, we discussed how to build your dream by beginning your research process on the Internet. Not only will this help you get the lay of the home buying land, but it can be done on your time frame, on your terms and without any drain on your gold-gilded gas tank.

Next, we recommended you document your findings. Keeping written record of the good, the to-be-desired and the wish-it-were of your housing trips will help you decide whether you need to keep looking or if you can narrow down your choices. Tracking the details will allow you to make an educated decision and save you from serious buyer’s remorse.

Need help in keeping all this house information together? That is where we go to Step 3.

Step 3: Keep it together and share it online. You can take all of the information you have been gathering on the houses and share it with your real estate agent. Remember that most people have not tapped into their third eye, so if there are things you like and dislike about the houses you have seen with your agent, make sure to communicate it clearly.

I was thinking last night about the first time I bought a house. Maybe it was because on one of the real estate forums I was browsing, I stumbled across a remark that made my bleary eyes blink at midnight,

“Please convince me to buy a house”

It made me take a trip down memory lane to my first home buying experience. I was 22 years old and had been renting a townhome from the real estate attorney I worked for. My fiance and I were looking for room to grow and he was feeling the pains of non-homeownership kick in. If you have ever rented, you know what I mean: “Why am I paying someone else instead of paying myself?”, “If I do any home improvements, the rewards are going to go in my landlord’s pocket and not mine”, “Working nine to five for zero return isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”, etc.

Written by: Lankarge/Nahorney for HomeInsight

It sounds like a great listing - in your price range - in a good neighborhood - with features you’re looking for. First impressions mean a lot - but you find the bushes are overgrown, the front hallway is covered with tacky foil wallpaper, the kitchen cabinets are painted dark brown, the living room rug smells musty, and the hardwood floors have black water marks on them.

Should you head back out the door? Maybe. But to fully determine whether you should cross this house off of your list you’ll need to gather more information and perhaps look past the blemishes to get a full picture of this house’s potential. How do you do that? Follow these 10 steps.

1. Start with emotion, but end with facts. Buying a home is an emotional process. You often find yourself trying to determine if this is where you want to spend the next 10, 20, or 30 years of your life (and perhaps raise a family). It’s OK if your initial impression is an emotional one. But because the purchase can be the largest you’ll ever make, you need to make sure you gather all of the facts you need to make an educated decision. View homes for sale and find out what homes are selling for by clicking here.

2. Look for good bones. Don’t get hooked on the decorating. The town or towns you are targeting for your home search likely have a handful of builders who have built a majority of the homes. Get to know the reputation of these builders. Then, before going to look at a home, find out who the builder was. You’ll want to be careful when looking at homes built by those with less than stellar reputations.

Then you need to learn to look past the furniture, wall colors, window treatments, and other decorating, and just look at the home layout and flow. New cherry cabinets and granite counters matter little if they are in the galley kitchen and you have a family of five. At the same time a family room with black walls featuring a mural of the moon on one side also matters little if it is big enough for your needs. Aesthetics are relatively inexpensive to fix - major construction is another matter.

3. When looking at room layout, avoid corner doors. Rooms with doorways in the middle of walls flow better than rooms that open in a corner. Remember that when looking for your dream home.

4. Make sure the most expensive stuff works. The two most expensive rooms in a home to renovate are kitchens and bathrooms. If you’re stretching to be able to afford a home and still eat, make sure these two rooms don’t need renovating anytime soon.

5. Take an inventory of features, what you like and what needs fixing. Good news: With more houses on the market than in the past several years, you’ll likely be able to look at more houses before making a decision to put in a bid. Bad news: That means it can get quite confusing to remember the details of each home you look at. Develop a list and for each home you visit, take note of features, things you like, and things that might need fixing (see Keep Them Straight sidebar, above). Click here to find out about features of properties for sale.

6. Is there room for expansion? You might not be concerned with adding onto the home you’re looking today, but what about tomorrow? Don’t necessarily exclude those additions that don’t have room and a logical place to expand, but do understand that you will be limited in your options down the road.

7. Does the basement leak? If you’ve been lucky enough to live in a house with a dry basement (or perhaps without a basement) it’s hard to imagine the havoc a wet basement can bring to your life. If you’ve ever lived in a house with a leaky basement or hate the thought of a foot of water surrounding your furnace, you’ll likely be sure to check that either the basement doesn’t leak or it has a system that automatically removes water.

8. What’s the condition of the home’s exterior? Does it need painting, or is it sided? Does it have painted brick that’s peeling? Is the aluminum siding chalking? Improving the exterior can be costly. Check the exterior walls carefully before putting in a bid.

9. Landscaping: Does it look like a park or a landfill? Landscaping not only includes the grass, bushes and any gardens, but also the hardscaping - the sidewalk, deck and/or patio. People are spending more time than ever outdoors and you’re likely no different. Landscaping improvements can be costly, but is one area in which homeowners often tackle projects themselves. If you have the time, energy, and expertise you can save money by doing some landscaping improvements. But costs can add up here - be sure to factor that into your decision and/or bid.

10. Check the zoning, nobody likes surprises. Too often homeowners are horrified to learn that their tranquil neighborhood is being invaded by multifamily housing, a big commercial business, or a 24-hour convenience store. Before you put a bid on a house go the town hall, city hall, or county register of records and find out the zoning of all contiguous properties.

Read the original:
10 Steps to House Hunting with a Well-trained Eye