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Buying a Home
Listings
Should I get pre-qualified for a mortgage first?
In a word....YES! Getting your pre-qualification done is quick and easy. Just provide
some basic information and the loan officer will tell you how much you are qualified for and
what your monthly payments will be. You also want to make sure there is nothing on your credit that
might prevent you from getting a mortgage. Even if you have a few bumps and bruises on your report,
chances are you will qualify for a mortgage, but finding out ahead of time may give you a chance to
correct any mistakes and thereby improve the rate and terms of your mortgage. Plus most sellers, especially
banks with foreclosed properties, will not accept an offer without a pre-qualification. You can visit our
mortgage partner and fill out a short application
on-line to get started!
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Should I get a home inspection?
A Home Inspection is optional, but highly recommended. Having your potential new home
inspected after making an offer may reveal any hidden defects that you will want to be
aware of before completing the sale. A seller's disclosure of defects or problems is required,
but a home inspection will reveal any hidden problems the sellers and agents are not aware of.
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What are some common expenses I can expect?
When you put an offer on a home, you will need to put down an earnest money deposit. This
is a "good faith" deposit and is negotiable. In some areas 1% of the purchase price is customary,
but sometimes it can be as little as $250 to $500, depending upon the purchase price. Another negotiable
amount is called an Option Fee. This money allows you to cancel the contract within a certain
amount of days and receive your earnest deposit back (this is usually the timeframe where you order your
inspections, which of course is an up-front expense and can cost anywhere from $175 to $350 depending upon
if there are additional items besides the home you want inspected, like a pool or sprinkler system.)
If you are financing your purchase, you will need to pay for the appraisal up-front (sometimes the lender
will pay this and let you pay it at closing.) Beyond that you will have customary closing costs, which will vary
depending upon the price of the home, financing rate and terms, yearly taxes and insurance and service fees from
the escrow (title) company, lender, city and county. On a conventional loan expect from about 4% to 4.5%. On an
FHA loan the closing costs can be up to 5.5% or more depending upon price. But fear not! You can request for a
seller to pay up to 3% of sales price towards your closing costs on a conventional loan and up to 6% on an FHA loan.
There are also down-payment assistance programs avaialable to help cover any down payment requirements. Talk to your loan
officer to get all the details. Our mortgage partner can
assist you in estimating total closing costs and monies needed (if any) at closing.
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Where does my listing appear?
Your listing will appear on this website, the local MLS and nationwide via REALTOR.com(™) (the #1 website for property searches), Trulia.com as well as
thousands of websites across the country including National brands such as Re/Max(™), Coldwell-Banker(™) and Century 21(™) just
to name few. How? Once your listing is in the MLS, it will appear in any website that displays MLS data nationally. REALTOR.com(™) is a collection
of MLS data from around the country. In other words, you will get a lot of exposure!
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Why can't I view sold property information?
Some states, such as Texas, are non-disclosure states and this information is not made available via MLS systems.
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Why do some properties no longer appear on the website or my favorites list?
The MLS data feeds only include Active listings. Once a property is updated to a status other than Active (i.e. Pending, Sold, Expired, etc.)
it no longer appears in the data feed. If a property you have been tracking suddenly is not available, its status is something other than Active.
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Why do changes to my listings not show up right away on this or other MLS websites?
Once your listing has been input into the MLS and any changes are made, your changes will not appear on this website or other
websites that import MLS data until their MLS data feed (the files sent to their websites by the MLS provider) are updated. For
most sites, including this one, this update occurs on or around midnight each night and the new data is processed shortly
thereafter. Some websites may update their information as little as once per week, depending upon their local MLS rules. Still other
websites may update their information several times a day. A good rule of thumb is to wait 24 hours for any submitted changes (including
photos) to appear on websites once those changes have been submitted to the local MLS.
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