If you’re buying a home for the first time, you risk making these common, but costly mistakes. Mistakes aren’t reserved for novices, the real estate market is complex and constantly changing so even experienced home buyers are prone to oversights and errors that have major consequences. This is why you need an experienced real estate agent on your side providing you with knowledge and expertise throughout the process. The agents at Signature Realty NJ know the market, how to evaluate the inventory of homes and avoid pitfalls and traps. They’re dedicated to providing you, their client, with exceptional advice based on your budget and specific circumstances.
Here are a few common mistakes buyers make:
- HAVE A PLAN AND STICK TO IT
- DRAGGING YOUR FEET ON FINANCING
- Not Getting a Home Inspection Done
- Bad Agents
As a buyer you have choices, but that means it’s easy to get distracted and lose focus. Developing a plan, sticking to it and doing research is important. When making your plan, consider your short and long term goals, living requirements, your budget and which geographic areas you’re interested in? Consider things like commute time to work and/or school and if you have school age children make sure to ask your agent which are the best local schools in the areas where you’re looking to buy? Working closely with your agent should be part of your plan. They have specialized local knowledge. Discuss things with your agent, weigh options, do your own independent research and develop a plan that is as specific as possible. Then, simply stick with the plan, improvise only as needed and buy with total confidence and satisfaction.
Buying real estate isn’t like buying anything else. Prices are generally stable and do not fluctuate. Generally, they march up at a steady clip; since the 1970s about 5% annually. That includes the financial crisis of 2008 after which the real estate market recovered within a few years and prices stabilized. Since then, they’ve continued steadily marching up.
Often buyers try to “time the market” and wait for something to happen that might cause prices to go down. That usually costs them. First, if prices go up higher, which they generally do, they’ll have to pay more. Second, if interest rates rise, they’ll have to pay more. Third, if they keep renting, they’ll pay more.
Another reason buyers drag their feet is “sticker shock;” they’re shocked by the high prices of homes. What they often fail to consider is what their monthly mortgage payment to own a home will actually be? Often mortgage payments are around the same amount buyers are used to paying in rent or a little bit more. Sometimes it’s actually cheaper to buy! Don’t forget, owners benefit from price appreciation; as soon as you own a property, you’ll be overjoyed to see prices go higher. There are many benefits to homeownership besides appreciation. You can get some great tax write offs too!
Talk to our lenders and work with them to get pre-approved. Become familiar with how to use a mortgage payment calculator and get past “sticker shock” and determine how much you can afford when making a monthly mortgage payment.
Buyers don’t always realize how important it is to get an impartial professional, a certified home inspector, to do an home inspection. They figure they’ve seen the property with their own eyes and know enough to think things will be fine after they close and finalize their purchase.
This can be an extremely costly mistake. Problems are often hidden out of sight and literally underground, or may be in plain sight? Once you’re the owner, you’re liable. As the buyer, you must beware. Even experienced buyers make this mistake, finding themselves coming up against major issues when it’s too late to have any recourse with the seller. The results can be disastrous! On a recent inspection the inspector pointed out that the air handler for the HVAC unit should not be in the garage because if the cover fell off and carbon monoxide made its way into the system it would distribute it throughout the house. CO is obviously very dangerous and can lead to death. Many homeowners do work with contractors without permits because it’s a hassle to get permits and wait for inspectors to come out and inspect all the work. Some contractors intentionally try to avoid the permitting process because it slows down them getting paid and finishing the job. Unfortunately that’s dangerous and that’s why it’s even more important to get the home inspected by a professional.
Avoiding this mistake is easy: before you close escrow, make sure you hire a qualified inspector to do a comprehensive home inspection of the property, period. Inspectors offer buyers an invaluable impartial evaluation, often some much needed skepticism, and help identify any and all potential problems. Their input can not only save buyers from making a costly long term mistake, it can save them cash up front by forcing the seller to discount the property based on their report.
At Signature Realty we train all our agents thoroughly and constantly offer them ongoing educational programs to develop and hone their expertise and skills so they can serve you better. Some of our agents have decades of experience and some are new. No matter how long they’ve been an agent, we teach them our core values: at Signature Realty we “seek to serve” our clients by offering expert real estate advice from a professional that’s exclusively on their side along with exceptional service and smooth transactions.
However, not all real estate brokerages or agents are created equal. There are some bad apples out there… The best impartial advice we can give you to avoid a bad agent is that if you’re not satisfied and impressed with the expert advice and service you’re receiving from your agent, fire them. Quickly.
As a buyer you have choices and if your agent is not working closely with you, meeting your needs and delivering exceptional advice and service? You have the right to find a new agent that will deliver the kind of exceptional service and useful, professional advice we at Signature Reality pride ourselves on providing to all of our clients.
Click this link and we will introduce you to one of our extremely qualified agents.