1. Decide to buy
There are personal reasons to buy a home and there are solid financial reasons to support your decision to buy a home, and, among these, equity buildup, value appreciation, and tax benefits stand out. Base your decision to buy on facts, not fears.
2. As your agent we will:
3. Secure financing.
To ensure you are considering homes within your budget and to make you offer more competitive, pre-qualification or pre-approval of financing is recommended. While you may find the thought of home ownership thrilling, the thought of taking on a mortgage may be downright chilling. Many first-time buyers start out confused about the process or nervous about making such a large financial commitment. We have professionals available who can assist with maximizing your financing options.
4. Find your home.
Looking for your home begins with carefully assessing your values, wants, and needs, both for the short and long terms. Some of the questions to ask yourself are:
5. Make an offer.
The three basic components of an offer are price, terms, and contingencies.
Price – the right price to offer should fairly reflect the true market value of the home you want to buy. Your agent’s market research will guide this decision.
Terms – the other financial and timing factors that will be included in the offer.
Terms fall under six basic categories in a real estate offer:
6. Perform due diligence.
Unlike most major purchases, once you buy a home, you can’t return it if something breaks or doesn’t quite work like it’s supposed to. That’s why property inspections and a Homeowner’s Insurance Warranty are so important.
a)Homeowner’s Insurance Policy – this protects you in two ways:
b) Property inspection - This report may expose secret or unknown issues a homeowner may not know of or might not disclose, so you know exactly what you’re getting into before you sign your closing papers.
Your major concern is structural damage.
7. Close of Escrow.
The final stage of the home buying process is the lender’s confirmation of the home’s value and legal statue, and your continued credit-worthiness. This entails a survey, appraisal, title search, and a final check of your credit and finance. We will keep you posted on how each is progressing, but your work is pretty much done.
You just have a few preclosing responsibilities:
On closing day, you’ll sign documents that do the following:
As long as you have clear expectations and follow directions, closing should be a momentous conclusion to your home-searching process and commencement of your home-owning experience.
8. Protect your investment.
Throughout the course of your home-buying experience, we’ll get to know each other fairly well. There’s no reason not to remain in touch periodically. Even after you close on your house, we can still help you:
Attention to your home’s maintenance needs is essential to protecting the long-term value of your investment.
Home maintenance falls into two categories:
According to the National Association of Realtors® 2017 Profile of International Activity in U.S. Residential Real Estate, between April 2016 and March 2017, foreign buyers and recent immigrants purchased $153.0 billion of residential property, which is a 49 percent jump from 2016 ($102.6 billion) and surpasses 2015 ($103.9 billion) as the new survey high. Overall, 284,455 U.S. properties were bought by foreign buyers (up 32 percent from 2016), and purchases accounted for 10 percent of the dollar volume of existing-home sales (versus 8 percent in 2016). The study revealed that nearly half of all foreign sales were in three states: Florida, California and Texas. Interestingly, the study also revealed that although China maintained its top position in sales dollar volume for the fourth straight year, the significant rise in foreign investment in the survey came from a massive hike in activity from Canadian buyers. After dipping in the 2016 survey to $8.9 billion in sales ($11.2 billion in 2015), transactions from Canadians this year totaled $19.0 billion, a new high for Canada.
Want more information about buying real estate in the United States? Then check out this Foreign Buyer’s Guide at:
What To Know About Buying Real Estate In The U.S.
And, if you have any other questions, please contact us; we're here to help.
We are honored to have been named Palm Springs Life Magazine’s list of top Coachella Valley real estate teams.
A big THANK YOU to all our buyers and sellers. We know you have a lot of choices when it comes to selecting a real estate agent and appreciate you placing your trust and confidence in us to advise and assist you. And last but definitely not least, a huge round of applause and thanks to our team and to all of the Compass team who help us in so many ways each and every day.