Your home inspection is often the single most important day of your escrow – it’s when you finally get some answers to all those questions that have been nagging you since you first set foot in your potential new home. How old is the roof? Is there copper plumbing? Has the electrical been updated? You can try and get answers to these questions before your write your offer, but you won’t have much concrete information until your general inspection. Continue reading
How Aggressive Should your Offer Be?
Every time I sit down with buyers to write an offer to purchase a home, the first question I am asked is “What price should we offer?” The answer to that question is determined by many factors, all of which need to be carefully considered before making a final decision on price. There is no “formula” for choosing the magic number that will get you an accepted offer – the circumstances surrounding each home are different and you’ll find that your offer strategies will change with each offer you write. Continue reading
Why You Should Call a Lender Now
If you are thinking of buying sometime in the next year, here are a few reasons why you should go ahead and talk to a lender now rather than waiting: Continue reading
When You Can’t Afford What You Want
Every once in a while, I’ll turn on the TV and see one of those California tourism ads that show young, tanned people splashing in the ocean, going on wine tastings, enjoying Disneyland and mountain biking around the state. Those are the ads that make my East Coast friends green with envy when I say I’m soaking up the 85-degree weather here in Los Angeles in February. However, anyone who has ever lived in LA will probably agree that all that California sun comes at a price – a ridiculously high price. If you are considering buying a home in LA – especially if you didn’t grow up here or are moving here from another state – you are probably experiencing some major sticker shock right now. Continue reading
Types of Lenders
For most people, the first serious step in the home buying process is talking with a lender about getting pre-approved for a loan. These days, buyers generally understand that in order to know what their purchasing power is – and to have the ability to actually submit an offer on a house – you have to start with a loan pre-approval. But who should you talk to in order to complete that process? Continue reading
You: What Your Agent Needs To Know
I recently had the opportunity to help out some colleagues in my office by writing an offer on their listing for some buyers who saw the property during an open house and didn’t have an agent. Most people probably think that agents love this type of situation – we get a call to write an offer for someone without having to do any “work” to help them find a house. However, the truth is that writing an offer is a fairly personal experience – one that can actually be kind of awkward if the buyers and the agent don’t have any kind of established relationship. Continue reading