Real Estate Blog – Condotron

When you have come to that decision that you will be selling your home, you need to decide next whether you will be selling it yourself or will you be using the services of a real estate agent. Let us weight the pros and cons:

Real estate agent

The agent will be asking for a commission if they sell your home. This boils down to giving them around 3% to 6% of the sale. It could be a big amount to handle especially if your home is around the $500,000 price range.

Real estate agents though know the ins and outs of the market. They have access to different resources which you do not have. They also have a good list of serious clients seeking to buy properties.

An agent can inject some objectivity into the selling process and guide you to see it in a right perspective. Their professional experience and opinion can help you price your home appropriately. Aside from the guidance, they will do all the footwork for the legal aspects of the home selling process.

For Sale By Owner

If you will be selling your home yourself, you need to consider a lot of things. First, a lot of buyers veer away from homes being sold by owners since they want to avoid any problems transacting with amateurs. You will also be prone to aggressive negotiations since the potential buyers know that you will not be paying any agent a commission. It takes some guts to sell your own home.

If you will be selling your own home, make sure that you do your homework well. You can tap services too like learning resources to know the basics of selling or advertising your property on a website. Once you put your home up for sale, it will be a product buyers want to examine inch by inch. Screen visitors that you will entertain, and get relevant information for your safety. Be ready to show people around your place by hosting an open house every weekend or as your schedule permits.

One of the most respected men in business gives home buyers some tips to adapt to the changing landscape of the real estate market. We can surely learn a lot of lessons from this tips coming straight from billionaire and philanthropist, Warren Buffett:

Smart way of owning a home

As a homebuyer you need to thin of three things: long term ownership, affordable monthly payments, and fixed mortgage. Buffett was asked how his holding for manufactured housing has done well in the rough market. The business guru shared that they focused on realistic down payment and opted for manageable fixed monthly installments based on the buyer’s income. These elements blended well so people can keep their home unlike other schemes which led to foreclosures and the mortgage bubble burst.

Your dream home may lead to a nightmare

Buffett also cautions homebuyers that trying to purchase your dream home that will have a very high monthly with an adjustable rate mortgage may mean a dream that leads to a bad ending. Warren Buffett explains that a dream house can be a terrible nightmare when the buyer is looking way beyond what his wallet can manage and when a lender gives into the fantasy of the buyer.

Homes will increase in value is still true

Buffett was invited in in Congress for an interview and for him to share his thoughts about the mortgage bubble burst. He said that the “liar loans” led to the economic crash because lenders and borrowers corrupted the basic premise of how prices of homes will go up and that it will never go down. Lenders allowed unqualified buyers to get homes or multiple properties which are way beyond what their bank account can handle.

Now that we have touched on why buying a bank-owned home might not be the best idea in the world, let’s move onto another reason why and that is the down payment.  Typically, when you purchase a home, that is something that you can talk about and it is typically like 5 to 10% down, however if you are buying a bank-owned home it is usually 20-25% down.

This is money right off the bat for a home that you do not know if it needs repairs.  Is it worth it?  To me, it is not.  Only because I think that there are is a lot of other options and I think that home owners are flexible with their price and if you give them a fair price they will give you a fair deal.

Keep this in mind whenever you are out looking for a home – I can promise that if you rush into the decision you will regret it.

Purchasing a home is a very, very big decision and it is one that should never be rushed into and never taken lightly.  However, that seems to be exactly what is happening to a lot of people, they are actually rushing to get the very best rates and the lowest mortgages, however it is not exactly the best plan.

In the next couple blogs, we are going to talk about why you do not want to take advantage of the prices that bank-owned homes are giving off.  For one, you never know exactly what you are going to be getting, as you can usually just see the home from the outside as you are bidding on it.

Stay tuned for some other reasons, you might be extremely surprised!

Now that we have talked about air filters and such, let’s move onto damaged caulking and some dirty tiles.  These two things are super easy to fix, all you have to do is head to the hardware store and chat up some of the employees.  Even if you are not handy, you can get a lot of information from these people that work in hardware stores and they are a fantastic resource that you should be using.

To be perfectly honest, caulking is super easy, all you need is the caulk and one of the machines to push the caulk through and you are all set!  Fixing dirty tiles is also extremely easy, all you need to do is brush them off and even go over them with some white vinegar.

White vinegar is a great agent to kill a lot of germs and to brighten and whiten those tiles right up.

When it comes to owning a home and fixing it up, the costs can get extremely costly and if you are like many of us out there in this day and age, you are probably trying to save a little bit of cash.  Well, that is what we are here for, to make sure that you are saving all of the money that you can, especially on things like home repairs!

One of the first things that you should check is the leaky faucets that you have around the house.  This can honestly be just a matter of tightening up something in order to fix them and there – you just saved yourself a plumber coming out and doing that for you.

You can also change out the air filters in your home to ensure that you have fresh and healthy air circulating throughout the house.  More in the next blog!

So, when is it okay to break the deal? If the house of your dreams has any debts, it may not be a good idea to keep your offer in the pot. At the very least, calculate how much you will be left paying.

If you find any structural damage, that’s it. Do not worry about any deals, just get out as close as possible. No real estate deal is worth the health and safety of you and your family.

You also need to make sure that the location suits your needs.

For that matter, the size of your house needs to suit your needs as well. If you are looking to buy a cute house but plan to expand your family … well, thinking for the future is always smart.

I know, I know, the title of this series of posts may just have caused a gasp of horror from readers, but it’s true — sometimes it is okay to back out.

These are worst case scenarios, however. This is why people who are selling and renting so often want to make sure that you see the property before anything is signed. Up to that point, you can still back out and leave them in the lurch. However, due to the often subversive and deceitful nature of real estate doings, sometimes landlords, sellers, brokers, and real estate agents are perfectly happy to leave you in the lurch as well. That is why it is important to realize that, yes, sometimes you can back out of a deal.

Across the country, we all know that banks are starting to foreclose on many homes and homeowners are left without a word of explanation.  The banks seem to be taking the homes without so much as a warning and it is happening everywhere – form Ohio all the way to NY and from NY all the way to Florida.  It seems that foreclosures have become increasingly popular and there is no way around it.

If you are a homeowner that is faced with foreclosure – there are a ton of things that you can do, you just need to know exactly what to do and what they are.  The first thing you need to realize is that you are not alone.  There are so many people out there that have faced foreclosure and have gotten through it and you can too.

In the next blog, we are going to talk about some more ways that you can handle foreclosure if you are faced with it.

One thing that will help you to decide if you do want to become an agent is by talking to other real estate agents. Knowledge is power in this industry, and learning about firsthand experiences can be enormously helpful.

You see, you can make good money when you work in real estate. However, it is not going to happen right away. As a new agent, you are going to have to pay your dues and make your bones, unless you are lucky enough to start out selling million dollar properties, which is not highly likely.

Thus it is important to be realistic. If your whole idea of being a real estate agent comes from one of those reality shows on Bravo, you need a big reality check.

As with any other endeavor, it takes hard work, determination, and patience to become successful in this industry. We will outline just how to go out it next week.