1. Inspect, Inspect and Inspect - Go over the inspection report with a fine tooth comb. Make sure the report was done by a professional organization. For condo purchases go over the CC&R s, By-Laws, and Association Fees. Don t take anything for granted... inspect everything!
    
2. Imagine the Property Vacant - Your furnishings and decorations will be the ones filling this new residence. Don t be swayed by beautiful furniture; it leaves with the owner.
    
3. Income + Lifestyle = Mortgage Payment - Sit down with your professional real estate agent and honestly discuss your income level and living expenses. Take into account future considerations, children, add-ons, amenities, and fix-ups. Your dream home is certainly worth a sacrifice but don t mortgage your entire future.
    
4. View Several Homes - See at least 7-10 properties. Don t move too slow but don t move on the first property you see. With your agent s help you should be able to view enough properties to get a good overall perspective of the home market. When you find the right property all the leg work will be worth it.
    
5. Utilize Your Team - By aligning yourself with the right real estate professional you will have an entire team at your disposal. Utilize your lender, title rep and agent. Each of them should work hand in hand for your benefit. Explore all the options before you sign.
    
6. Be Columbo - Check out all costs and expenses before you sign. Utilities, taxes, insurance, maintenance and home owner dues if applicable. Make sure all utilities (gas, electricity, and water) are on during tyour walk-throughso you can inspect everything in working order. Ask lots of questions and be very detail conscious.
    
7. Do a Final Walk-Through - Visit the property after all furnishings have been moved out to be sure there are no surprises. Be absolutely positive the property was left exactly as you had agreed upon in the contract. Things that could have been spotted in a final walk-through are often unintentionally overlooked.
    
8. Plan For Flexibility - Closing dates are not written in stone. Allow for contingencies and have a back-up plan. If you or the sellers need a little more time to conclude the final arrangements, don t let these delays upset or frustrate you. These types of circumstances are not uncommon in a real estate transaction.
    
9. If It s Not In Writing, It Doesn t Exist - All promises and discussions should be in writing. Don t make any assumptions or believe any assurances. Even the best intentions can be misinterpreted. Have your professional keep an ongoing log in writing of all discussions and get the seller s written approval on all agreements.
    
10. Loyalty Breeds Loyalty - Be open, honest and up front with your team. Hard feelings and disloyalty will cause head aches, delays or may even keep you from getting into the home you worked so hard to locate. Take the time to select the right team in the beginning and your first home purchase will be a pleasing and memorable experience.

Click on this link for a National Association of Realtors (NAR) brochure on the 1st Time Buyer Credit:

1stTimeBuyersTaxCredit.pdf

More Information for 1st Time Buyers:

Start with Confidence

Doing research on how to buy a home is itself an investment - in time. On the one hand are the shelves of books on the subject - helpful, yet sometimes tedious in their detail. On the other hand are specialty Web sites with short, sharp home-buying tips that sacrifice depth and introduce pop-up invitations to apply for mortgages, credit reports, or real estate listings. Even the most hardened researcher can have a tough time telling the forest from the trees. If you are gearing up to buy a house, you may need at least one self-help guide, if only as an anti-jargon dictionary that will help you tell your ARM from your JUMBO.

The professionals are gung-ho to entice you into the real estate world. The government offers big tax incentives; banks compete to loan out massive mortgages while realtors woo from here to eternity to get new clients.

What most buyers, especially first-timers, do not realize, is that they are doing the government, the banks, the Realtors, the construction industry, and the overall economy a favor. If owning a home seems synonymous with the American Dream, it could be because fencing solid citizens inside a white picket mortgage for 30 years is very good for business. Apart from feeding the earnings of bankers, builders, Realtors, inspectors, lawyers, and insurers, a new homeowner usually forks out lavish amounts on furnishings, appliances, home decorating, gardening, and a whole slew of ancillary products that bolster the local economy.

Take a deep breath
"If there's one thing I could have changed about our home-buying experience, it would be my own attitude," says Paul Hardiman, who with his wife Katrina Connolly purchased a first home last year. "We were so anxious about the process itself, getting the down-payment, finding a mortgage broker and then a realtor and so on, that we never truly realized these people were working for us, and not the other way around. Had I stopped to think about it at the time, I would have demanded a lot better service."

"It's not so much that we were taken advantage of," said Connolly, "but we probably would have gotten more house and better service for our money had we been more assertive. But we were overwhelmed. After months of looking around we saw there was a squeeze in our price range and that affected our judgment. The brokers, Realtors - everyone we dealt with were all upbeat and kind of hurried, like if we slowed for a second we'd lose something. That damaged us in the negotiations."

Flex your consumer muscle
John Adams, a broker, investor and author on real estate, agrees that "in the world of real estate sales, you are the most important person in the entire process. It's easy to think everyone else carries more weight than you. The seller owns the house and has all the money. The agent talks fast and has an answer for everything. The lender may decline your loan application, and on and on. But the truth is that you, the buyer, are the one person in this transaction who makes it all happen. If you decide to not buy, the entire process comes to a grinding halt."

Adams urges buyers to flex their consumer muscle by doing basic research to ensure they understand everything that is happening around them. "Just because we don't apply for a 30-year mortgage once a week doesn't mean we have to take the first one that comes along," he said. Adams advises buyers learn new terms, apply new concepts, and take the time to understand what you're getting into. And when something happens that doesn't make sense, demand a full and complete explanation from the professionals working on your behalf, he said.

"If you plan from the beginning to approach the home buying process intelligently and with confidence," Adams said, "you are more likely to emerge at the end of the day with a house you'll be proud to call home, and the knowledge that you made the right decision." 



5 Secrets to Buying the Best House for Your Money

1. Get "Pre-Approved" - Not "Pre-Qualified!"

Do you want to get the best property you can for the least amount of money? Then make sure you are in the strongest negotiating position possible. Price is only one element in the negotiations, and not necessarily the most important one. Often other terms, such as the strength of the buyer or the length of escrow, are critical to a seller.

In years past, I always recommended that buyers get "pre-qualified" by a lender. This means that you spend a few minutes on the phone with a lender who asks you a few questions. Based on the answers, the lender pronounces you "pre-qualified" and issues a certificate that you can show to a seller. Sellers are aware that such certificates are WORTHLESS, and here's why! None of the information has been verified!

Many times unknown problems can come to the surface! Some of the problems I've seen include recorded judgments, alimony payments due, glitches on the credit report due to any number of reasons both accurately and inaccurately, down payments that have not been in the clients' bank account long enough, etc.

So the way to make the strongest offer today is to get "pre-approved". This happens AFTER all information has been checked and verified. You are actually APPROVED for the loan and the only loose end is the appraisal on the property. This process takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks depending on your situation. It's VERY POWERFUL and a weapon I recommend all my clients have in their negotiating arsenal.

2. Sell Your Property First, Then Buy the House

If you have a house to sell, sell it before selecting a house to buy! Contingency sales aren't nearly as strong as one that comes in with a ready, willing and able buyer. Consider this scenario: You've found the perfect house - now you have to go make an offer to the seller. You want the seller to reduce the price and wait until you sell your house. The seller figures that this is a risky deal, since he might pass up a buyer who DOESN'T have to sell a house while he's waiting for you. So he says OK, he'll do the contingency but it has to be a full price offer! You have now paid more for the house than you could have because of the contingency, and you have to sell your existing house in a hurry! Otherwise you lose the house! So to sell quickly you might take an offer that's lower than if you had more time. The bottom line is that buying before selling might cost you THOUSANDS of dollars.

If you're concerned that there is not a house on the market for you, then go on a window-shopping trip. You can identify possible houses and locations without falling in love with a specific house. If you feel confident after that then put your house on the market.

Another tactic is to make the sale ''subject to seller finding suitable housing''. Adding this phrase to the listing means that WHEN YOU DO FIND A BUYER, you will have some time to find the new place. If you don't find anything to your liking, you don't have to sell your present home.

3. Play the Game of Nines

Before house hunting, make a list of things you want in the new place. Then make a list of the things you don't want. You can use this list as a guide to rate each property that you see. The one with the biggest score wins! This helps avoid confusion and keeps things in perspective when you're comparing dozens of homes.

When house hunting, keep in mind the difference between ''STYLE AND SUBSTANCE''. The SUBSTANCE are things that cannot be changed such as the location, view, size of lot, noise in the area, school district, and floor plan. The STYLE represents easily changed surface finishes like carpet, wallpaper, color, and window coverings. Buy the house with good SUBSTANCE, because the STYLE can always be changed to match your tastes. I always recommend that you imagine each house as if it were vacant.

Consider each house on its underlying merits, not the seller's decorating skills.  

4. Don't Be Pushed Into Any House

Your agent should show you everything available that meets your requirements. Don't make a decision on a house until you feel that you've seen enough to pick the best one.

A decade ago, homes were selling quickly, usually a few days after listing. In that kind of market, agents advised their clients to make an offer ON THE SPOT if they liked the house. That was good advice at the time. Today there isn't always this urgency, unless a home is drastically underpriced, and you'll know if it is.

Don't forget to check into the SCHOOL DISTRICTS of the area you're considering. Information is available on every school; such as class sizes, % of students that go on to college, SAT scores, etc. You can get this information from this web site.

5. Stop Calling Ads!

Please note - ads are sometimes created to make the phone ring! Many of the homes have some drawback that's not mentioned in the ad, such as traffic noise, power lines, or litigation in the community. What's not mentioned in the ad is usually more important than what is.

For this reason, I want you to be very careful when reading ads. Remember that the person writing the ad is representing the seller and not you! The most important thing you can do is have someone on your side looking out for your best interests. Your own agent will critique the property with an eye towards how well it meets your needs and will point out any drawbacks you should know about. So whether you decide to work with me or not, pick an agent you feel comfortable with and enlist the services of that agent as a buyer's broker. Then you become a client with all the rights, benefits, and privileges created by this agency relationship, and you're no longer just a shopper. Did you know that many homes are sold WITHOUT A SIGN ever going up or an AD EVER BEING PUT IN THE PAPER? These "great deals" go to those people who are committed to working with one agent. When an agent hears of a great buy, who do you think he's going to call? His client, who he has a legal obligation to work hard for you, or someone who just called on the phone and said "keep your eyes open"? So to get the best buy on a property, I always recommend that you hire your own agent and stick with him or her.