Setting Roots

I wanted to make a quick post and ensure everyone knows that the U.S. Government is NOT offering help to home owners via mail or at any site on the web. All assistance to home owners is in the way of tax rebates, or assistance refinancing and the like. The government is not sending out offers in the mail, and will never send you an offer via e-mail. If you get one of these, please ignore them! They are most likely a scam.

Sadly, these things are popping up more and more, and many people are being taken by them, please do not allow yourself to be one of the victims of these scam artists. If you are curious about what help the U.S. government is offering, the best thing to do would be to contact either the Internal Revenue Service (http://www.irs.gov) or the Federal Housing Administration (http://www.fha.gov) directly. Get your information straight from the source, to avoid being the victim of a scam!

As always, please feel free to leave your comments, and send me your questions! Your feedback so far has been great.

An important part of the home buying process is having an inspection done. Typically, you will have 7-10 business days to have an inspection done once your offer has been accepted. There are several important things you should know about the home inspection.

1. You are entitled to choose your own home inspector. The Real Estate agent may suggest one, but you are NOT obligated to use the one suggested. Choose someone you trust.
2. The seller may have already had an inspection done, but you still have the right to get your own inspection done as well. Do not rely on the inspector that works for the seller, always seek a second opinion.
3. An inspection is NOT an appraisal. The inspector should not tell you what he thinks the home is worth.
4. A good inspector is there just to give you the facts, to find faults, concerns and failures to meet code. He may tell you what needs to be done to correct a deficiency, but a good home inspector should not offer to fix it for you or recommend people to do the work. His job is simply to give you the facts, not refer you to people to correct the deficiencies.

With all that in mind, I would suggest that you accompany the inspector during his inspection. Again, you have the right to be there, and most home inspectors won’t mind having you there or answering your questions. Remember, you get what you pay for, so don’t necessarily rely on the cheapest home inspector. Also, one reason to accompany the home inspector is to trust byt verify. A friend of mine paid $450 for a home inspector to come inspect a prospective purchase. The guy walked through all the rooms, flipped on lights and turned on faucets and said everything was good. Naturally, my friend refused to pay. You want a home inspector to be curious, to dig deep. You WANT the inspector to find faults, so you don’t find them when it is too late… Make sure the inspector tests every electrical outlet, inspects the attic and the roof. If the home you are inspecting includes a pool, be sure that the inspector you choose inspects pools and pool equipment as well.

Finally, remember to take the report with a “grain of salt“. The inspector will find problems with the home. Likely he will find problems that you did not notice… That’s okay. Not all issues are (or should be) deal breakers. You may be willing to over look something minor like a cracked base-board or a leaky faucet. But some thing more serious like improper electrical wiring, or termites should give you pause. If it is correctable, you may ask the seller to have it fixed before you close on the house, or you may decide to call off the deal altogether. Make sure, that when you decide you want to bid on house that you have not “fallen in love with it” to the point that you are willing to over look major defects, shoddy craftsmanship or other problems, because once you buy the home, those problems become YOUR problems.

OK, so you’ve looked through MLS Listings, and real estate ads, and gone to the open-houses and have done a thourough search, and you have finally found the home you want to buy. So what happens next?

I’ll tell you how it went with me…

My real estate agent (who was simply fantastic) sat down with me and took notes about everything I was looking for in a home. She insisted that nothing was too trivial, after all, this is one of the most major decisions you will make in your life… That night she e-mailed me MLS listings for about 96 houses available in the area I wanted to look in.

I went through that list and sent her back a much shorter list of homes I was interested in seeing, based solely off of the listings. We then began visiting the homes. At each ones I would take notes on the pros and cons, and I would write down any questions I had so my agent could hunt down the answers. After looking at a lot of houses I finally found my dream home, I knew it was the place I wanted to bid on, that’s when the REAL nitty-gritty of Real Estate begins.

The First thing we did was to go back to her office and look at what they were asking, and discuss what a reasonable offer would be. This would be the amount we deliniated in the bid contract, which in and of itself wound up being nearly 50 pages! Aside from the offer, this contract also specifies how much (if anything) you want the seller to pay towards closing, how much you want them to cover in repairs (if needed), or that you accept the house “as is”. This is also the point at which you pay your “binder fee” (more on that later). Then we sent the bid-contract over to the selling agent. This is when the lengthy negotiation process began.  This seemed to continue for days, tweaking the details here and there. Once both parties had reached an offer we could agree on, we began the closing process.

For me the closing process involved all of the following:

• I received a copy of the selling agent’s home inspection
• I arranged to have my own home inspection done, and my own WDO (Wood Destroying Organism) inspection done. Both of these were completed by the same inspector on the same day. He was VERY thorough.
• My bank arranged to have the home appraisal completed (you will get a copy of the appraisal at or after closing)
• My bank had me sign some final paperwork, lock in my final interest rate and sent my package off to “Underwriting”. Underwriting took longer than anything else in this process.

By AP

(TAUNTON, Mass.) — A 53-year-old wife and mother fatally shot herself shortly after faxing a letter to her mortgage company saying that by the time they foreclosed on her house that day, she would be dead.

Police said that Carlene Balderrama used her husband’s high-powered rifle to kill herself Tuesday afternoon, shortly after faxing the letter at 2:30 p.m.

The mortgage company called police, who found Balderrama’s body at 3:30 p.m. The auction was scheduled to start at 5 p.m. and interested buyers arrived at the property in Taunton, about 35 miles south of Boston, while Balderrama’s body was still inside, according to Taunton police chief Raymond O’Berg.

Police did not immediately release the name of the mortgage company. O’Berg said Balderrama’s fax read, in part, “By the time you foreclose on my house I’ll be dead.”

O’Berg also said a suicide note found next to Balderrama told her husband, John, and 24-year-old son to “take the (life) insurance money and pay for the house.”

Joe Whitney, who works with Balderrama’s husband, a plumber, said that Balderrama handled the bills and her husband didn’t know about the foreclosure.

“John didn’t even know about it, that’s the surprise,” Whitney said told The Boston Globe. “It’s just one of those awful, awful tragic events.”

As I have stated before, I have decided to retain the services of a Real Estate Agent. I believe the benefits of their expertise are worth the loss of any potential benefits of my going it alone, especially since I am new to this whole process.

So far I have been working with one Agent and she has been very helpful, she is very pleasant and seems responsive. The thing is, I didn’t really choose her in a very scientific way… I simply saw her office on my way to Target one day and decided to stop by, next thing I knew we were looking at houses the next day. She asked what I was looking for, listened attentively, and sent me a list of houses in the area that met my minimum requirements. The list was right there in my inbox when I got home. I looked through the list and sent her my favorites, and we’ve started looking. So far things are great.

We were supposed to go looking at houses today, but it seems that she had an unexpected meeting pop-up, and had to cancel on me. This was a little frustrating, but acceptable (for now). She was polite and apologized and sent me another list to review. She also wrote down some of the questions I had about the houses we have already looked at so she could get the answers from the owners.

I was also contacted today by another agent with whom I had made an inquiry over the web several days ago (before my trip to Target)… The second agent listened to my description of what I want on the phone, and also e-mailed me a list. The second agent’s list is substantially shorter, and includes houses that exceed my desired price limit by as much as $10,000.

So, my question is this…

Is it bad form to work with multiple agents? How should I decide which one is best for me?

First-time home-buyers face an unfamiliar road and risk purchasing the wrong place at the wrong time. Here’s a guide to the potholes.

By Liz Pulliam Weston

Buying your first home is an exercise in faith. You don’t really know what you’re getting into, you’re awash in unfamiliar terminology and everyone you meet seems to have strong (and utterly contradictory) ideas about which way the housing market is headed.

You may not be able to avoid every home-purchase mistake, but you can keep your regrets to a minimum by avoiding the following traps:
(continue reading…)

I officially started visiting homes yesterday. I have been looking at online listings for months now, and I have a good idea of what is out there, and what I want. Finally getting out there and looking at homes was incredibly helpful. It’s one thing to read that a place is 1,500 square feet, it is another thing entirely to see what 1,500 square feet actually looks like.

I am single, and I grew up in inner city apartments, so 1,500 square feet is a lot of room for me. I am a pretty handy guy, I know how to do most any minor home repair, and I can do a lot of major ones also, so the house being completely finished is not a major concern for me, but it certainly is a perk.

I have decided to retain the services of a Real Estate Agent. A lot of people have told me that I may be able to get a better deal without the agent, but I find it helpful to have someone who knows the market assist and guide me. Since I am new to the area it is also nice that she is familiar with the neighborhoods as well. The general reason you may be able to get a better deal without an agent is because of how their comission works. As a home BUYER, the agent is free to you. She takes half of the SELLING AGENT’S commission. Needless to say, the selling agent will probably try to get the owners to favor a person who is not retaining the services of another realator so that they can keep 100% of the commission.

It’s important to remember though, that the seller’s agent ultimately works for the seller, and she is looking out for the sellers best interest. It’s her job to move houses, so she may not have your best interests in mind. Purchasing a home is a MAJOR decision. Don’t let anyone rush you or try to make you settle. If you are not completely satisfied, keep looking. Especially the way the market is right now. Remember, this is a BUYER’S market right now. Take advantage of it!




Welcome to SettingRoots.com, my newest addition to the internet where I intend to chronicle my adventures as a first-time home buyer, then as a first-time home owner. I am looking forward to getting the site off the ground, but needless to say, there is much work to be done.

A little about me… I am a 30 year old male. I am currently living in Jacksonville, Florida. I just moved here from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I am both excited and absolutely terrified at the prospect of buying my first home. I have been trying to mitigate the terror by educating myself as much as possible on the subject of home buying and real estate. Hopefully, this blog will serve not only as an entertaining read, but also as an informative ans useful resource for other first-time home buyers.

More to come!