Are you a first time home buyer? With so many choices to make and so much at stake, it’s essential that you prepare. For advice, check out the First Time Home Buyer Guide from realtor.com® to learn the 10 steps to purchasing your first home without a hitch.

See the complete article Find out more here

Finally.

You slapped your John Hancock on the closing paperwork. You’re happy with your loan … well, as happy as you can be, considering the magnitude of the debt you just accepted. Stress dreams have mostly subsided, barring the occasional vision of some movers dropping your grandmother’s curio cabinet, shattering this priceless antique while they run off with your money.

Moving can be a pain in the you-know-what. That’s why we’ll share some expert tips and tricks to make the process as easy and pain-free possible.

Find a Mover

Before you lock in a moving company, the first thing you should do is research. Search online to find reviews for local movers. Find out which have the best ratings and then visit their websites.

Once you have your top companies narrowed down, it’s time to start asking questions. Get quotes and compare damage and insurance policies. Find one you trust? Share with them your moving date and lock it down.

To avoid hidden fees and other complications that come along with last-minute bookings, it’s always a good idea to lock in a moving company well before your move. To be extra careful, locking in your company six weeks prior to your moving date is a good goal, but aim for no less than two weeks.

Do repairs and painting first

Before moving in, go through your home looking for any necessary improvements. Is the bedroom wall a nasty shade of taupe? Is the hardwood floor scuffed and dirty? Before your movers start lugging in boxes and placing heavy furniture, get it done.

“If you plan on painting or doing any light repairs, it’s easier to do those things before moving your stuff into the house,” says Kellie Tinnin, a Realtor® in Albuquerque, NM.

Skipping this step now can mean a headache later, when you’re forced to shove furniture into the center of the room just to paint the walls—or even take everything out of the space so you can access those scratched floors.

Hire a cleaner

For the same reason, there’s no better time to thoroughly clean your home than when there’s nothing in it.

“The best gift to yourself is to hire a professional cleaner to give it the once-over before you start to move your personal items in,” says Kinnaird Fox, a Realtor with Sotheby’s in New York City.

Yes, it’s an added expense, but moving into an impeccably clean home is guaranteed to make a stressful transition much happier. After all, wouldn’t it be better if you didn’t have to scrub out the soot and ash from the fireplace yourself—or spend two days on hands and knees polishing the baseboards? As Aziz Ansari‘s character on “Parks and Recreation” would say, “Treat yo’ self.”

Change the locks

As soon as you get the chance, hire a locksmith to change all the locks on your house (don’t forget the back entrance or any other access points). While we’re certain the seller is trustworthy, you never know who else might have keys to your new home. Better to be safe than sorry.

Doors aren’t the only locks that need changing: Buyers who use a community mailbox should make sure to have it rekeyed by the local post office, which should cost about $40 or $50. That’s not much at all for peace of mind that no one is digging through your mail.

Don’t forget the utilities

You don’t want a sudden power outage one month after your move. Even worse is when it’s your own darn fault.

“Many sellers are focused on their new move, and sometimes utilities are forgotten in the mix,” says Fox. By the time you move in, you should get in touch with all of your new providers to switch services to your name. If you’re moving into a standalone house from an apartment, you might be surprised by the variety of utilities you need to set up.

Check with the former owners to determine specifically what you’re paying for and what you need to set up, but expect to pay for water, gas, electricity, and trash—as well as any cable TV or Internet services you desire.

Check in with the HOA

Does your new home have a homeowners association? If so, contact the HOA to make sure everything is up to date. You’ll likely need to fill out transfer paperwork so it has a record of the new ownership. Even great HOAs can be difficult to deal with, requiring meticulous paperwork and cumbersome restrictions, so make sure you understand the bylaws and neighborhood restrictions of your HOA. You don’t want to get off on the wrong foot with your new neighbors, so full knowledge of how the association works is absolutely necessary.

Make a detailed list of your belongings

Moving is a complicated, messy affair—so take the opportunity to make an inventory of your belongings during packing, labeling each box with what’s in it.

“You’ll be grateful for the detailed description of contents stored within the myriad packing boxes that now surround you,” says Fox. There’s a bonus: A home inventory is worth its weight in gold if you have any sort of accident such as a fire, or a natural disaster leaves your home a wreck.

Figure out the best nearby takeout

All done? Boxes in place, furniture in your house—if not in the right spot? Movers gone? The proper way to celebrate is with takeout and beer, eaten on the floor. Do your research ahead of time so you know what you want to eat, and aren’t left scrambling an hour before closing time.

“Know where the best pizza place or takeout is nearby,” says Eileen O’Reilly, a Realtor in Burlingame, CA. “When you are crazy busy with moving in, you don’t want to get hangry.”

Congratulations! You’re finished … until it’s time to sell, that is. In the meantime, though, it’s time to resume doing what this whole journey is all about: enjoying your amazing new digs!

**Ryan Wheeler is an expert real estate agent and military veteran serving buyers and sellers of homes in the Shreveport-Bossier City area.  Connect With Me Here

Are you a first time home buyer? With so many choices to make and so much at stake, it’s essential that you prepare. For advice, check out the First Time Home Buyer Guide from realtor.com® to learn the 10 steps to purchasing your first home without a hitch.

See the complete article Find out more here

Click Here to See if I Should Be Your Agent 

Final walk-throughs are not home inspections, even though it might seem that way.  It is not a time to begin negotiations with the seller to do repairs, nor is it a contingency of sale. A final walk-through is an inspection performed anywhere from a few hours to a few days before settlement. It’s primary purpose is to make certain that the property is in the condition you agreed to buy — that agreed-upon repairs, if any, were made, and nothing has gone wrong with the home since you last looked at it.

Buyers are often pressed for time as the day draws near for closing, which means buyers can be tempted to pass on the final walk-through. It is never a good idea to blow off the final walk-through.

You’re “this close” to owning a new home, you can almost taste it. The closing paperwork is prepared, your new digs passed the inspection, and—wonder of wonders—you’re even happy with your loan. Homeownership is just on the other side of the hill.

As long as the final walk-through goes all right.

OK, take a breath—there’s no need to panic. The vast majority of walk-throughs reveal no problems at all, and even if they do, most issues are easily fixed. Still, it can be an awkward, stressful process that can make you want to reach for the Xanax, especially for first-time buyers. Learn what to look for on your last trip through the house before the sellers hand over the keys. Your new keys.

Create a checklist

Before your walk-through, work with your Real Estate Agent to create a comprehensive checklist covering all of your concerns with the home—the items that you’d like to see addressed or fixed, pronto. Look at your notes from previous walk-throughs and the inspection report to determine what areas of the house you should double-check to ensure what you asked to be fixed has been.

“Simply having a checklist during final walk-through can greatly reduce any issues,” says Joe Stanfield, a Realtor in Charlotte, NC.

Other things to add to your inspection list include ensuring that all appliances work—make sure to turn them on while you’re in the house—as well as the bathroom plumbing. Check the windows, doors, and all outlets and lights. If anything is amiss, bring it up with the sellers as soon as possible and negotiate a fee the sellers can give you by personal check to cover the costs of fixing it yourself. It’s your last chance. Make it count.

Ensure required repairs were completed

Most sellers are good, ethical people, but you never know if you’re dealing with a sneak (or at least a transitory case of seller amnesia, whose symptoms include the oft-heard line, “Oh, I meant to get to that”) until the final walk-through. After all, the selling process can be hyper-complicated—leaving required repairs unfinished because priorities have been focused elsewhere.

“Sometimes a seller will have indicated that a repair previously negotiated during the due diligence period was completed, but the buyer finds out during the walk-through that it has not,” says Suzette Gray, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker in Charlotte, NC.

She recommends asking for copies of paid invoices for all repairs. If it’s a simple repair—such as patching up drywall or replacing a faucet—ask them to send you a photo of the completed work before the walk-through, “so there are no surprises.”

And while civility is key, this is not the time for politeness. If you do find something wrong that they’d vowed to address, it’s worth the awkwardness of bringing it up face to face and demanding compensation—after all, a promise is a promise. Right?

Inspect previously hard-to-reach spots

During your final walk-through, inspect everything you couldn’t check out earlier due to lack of time.

“You always want to ensure that you aren’t stuck with problems that were previously hidden from view,” says Seth Stisher from the Seth Realty Team in Charleston, SC.

Did an enormous Persian area rug cover the living room floor before? Was the couch pushed flush against the wall? Take a careful look at the hardwood below for any water damage or rot. This goes double if you’re buying a home with a basement once filled with boxes or clutter. Basements are ground zero for mold, water damage, and other structural issues, and it’s easy for sellers to hide (or miss) problems behind a layer of clutter.

Look for missing items—or secret swaps

Make sure all appliances and fixtures you’d liked during earlier visits are still present—or haven’t undergone a subpar substitution.

“If you were promised a chandelier and now there is an empty socket, that’s not going to fly,” says Janine Acquafredda, a Realtor in Brooklyn, NY. Basically anything connected to the home by plugs or pipes should stay—or if the sellers intended to keep something other than their furniture and belongings, it should be specified in the contract. Swapping out the bronze cabinet pulls for mediocre chrome replacements isn’t OK, either, and you have every right to demand them reinstated before the home changes hands.

Don’t panic over a little dirt

You might be expecting a picture-perfect, Architectural Digest–ready home, with polished hardwood floors and shining countertops—but few real estate contracts mandate those expectations, instead asking for the place to be “broom clean.” Which does not mean “scrubbed within an inch of its life.”

Usually that’s your job. Sorry.

“Everyone has a different definition of broom clean, and if the place is a little dirty it’s not the end of the world,” says Koki Adasi, a Realtor with Koki & Associates in Silver Springs, MD. Don’t stress over minor problems such as scratches in the hardwood or marks on the walls. It’s certainly not worth raising a fuss over—not only will it annoy the sellers, but chances are you’ll cause more damage during move-in.

Speaking of: With your final walk-through completed and closing paperwork signed, you’ve got only one step left: moving in to your new home. Really.

**Ryan Wheeler is an expert real estate agent and military veteran serving buyers and sellers of homes in the Shreveport Bossier City area.  Connect With Me Here!

Are you a first time home buyer? With so many choices to make and so much at stake, it’s essential that you prepare. For advice, check out the First Time Home Buyer Guide from realtor.com® to learn the 10 steps to purchasing your first home without a hitch.

See the complete article Find out more here

Click Here to See if I Should Be Your Agent 

If you’re gearing up to buy a home, one bitter pill you’ve got to swallow is that you don’t just have to pay for the house itself. You’ll also need to open your swiftly slimming wallet for a myriad of costs, fees, and taxes—the infamous closing costs. It’s a wide variety of fees that average 2% to 3% of the home’s purchase price. So in Shreveport-Bossier City on a $250,000 home, your closing costs would amount to anywhere from $5,000 to $7,000.

After the stress of house hunting and the anxiety of the offer, you might feel like you can’t handle yet another hurdle. But closing costs are an inevitable part of the purchase process. Happily, there’s often wiggle room—at least on the costs that could be covered by the seller. Learn about what goes into your closing costs—and, even more important, how to whittle them down to size.

Inspection and appraisal fees

You won’t have much luck lowering appraisal fees—since the lender selects the appraiser, you’ll likely be stuck paying their costs without much room to negotiate. The home inspector offers more flexibility: Compare a variety of quotes to find the cheapest option. You even might be able to persuade the seller to cover some of these fees, depending on your market (this is less likely in a red-hot market). Granted, you won’t be saving a ton of money here, considering the average home inspection costs $300 to $500, but a couple of hundred extra never hurts.

Lender fees

Let’s hope you paid careful attention when shopping for your mortgage: Different lenders require different fees, and buyers should keep an eye out for “junk fees” like for the application, credit check, processing, and even the frustrating but all too common “miscellaneous” fee.

Also take a close look at the loan estimate you receive from your lender at the beginning of the process and compare it with the closing disclosure statement, which you’ll get three days before your scheduled closing. Make sure no unexpected charges snuck their way onto your bill.

Discount points

If you decided to pay for discount points at closing to lower your interest rate, well, the bill is due. However, with the current low interest rates, that might not make sense for many buyers anyhow.

Home insurance

No, you can’t negotiate the existence of home insurance (most lenders require it to proceed with the loan), but you can certainly shop around. With the average premium stretching to $1,034 in 2015, your insurance will be a large cost regardless—but researching companies and comparing quotes goes a long way toward decreasing your expenses.  You would be surprised to find that your national name car insurance company can’t often beat a smaller company half-way across the country that you never heard of.  It pays to shop around.

Title insurance

In many states, title insurance is a lender mandate that protects your ownership of the property, heading off a number of unsavory situations such as fraudulent claims, courthouse errors, liens, and family disputes. If your lender requires you to purchase title insurance, you can shop around for a better quote. Unlike home insurance, title insurance is a one-time fee, which can make its high cost (the average buyer pays $3.50 per $1,000 of purchase price) easier to swallow.

Sometimes, the seller will pay for title insurance; however, this is uncommon and may not be the norm in your state. Consult with your real estate agent to determine if this is an option for you.

Seller’s costs

Sneaky, sneaky: One easy way to avoid paying a mountain of closing costs is by asking the seller to cover some or all of the fees. You might not have much luck in a red-hot market, but then again, a seller might agree to cover closing costs if she is able to get the selling price she wants. This works for buyers who might be short on cash but can handle adding a bit more to their loan balance. FHA loans allow sellers to contribute up to 6% toward closing costs; VA loans allow 4%, and conventional loans permit 3% to 6%. Here in Louisiana, it’s traditional for a seller to pay all closing costs when given a full-price offer.  This doesn’t mean it will happen but a seller is usually more agreeable when their number has been met.

The fee for a title search is the fee for a title search, and you don’t want to skip that because you definitely want to know that the home you are buying has a clear title. And taxes are taxes, so you won’t find any wiggle room there. But you might find some mortgage origination fees that are less expensive if you shop around for a mortgage.

But about the only surefire way to reduce closing costs is to pay cash for a house. And even then, you will still likely pay for an appraisal, home inspections, local, county and state government fees, escrow fees, bank transfer fees, taxes and insurance premiums. But you will spare yourself loan costs.

If you aren’t paying cash, fool around with a closing costs calculator to see what fun awaits you.

Timing

Most experts recommend closing on a house at the end of the month. Closing costs also include any interest that accumulates before the end of the current month—so closing on the 29th rather than the 1st of the next month will save you money.

But before you sign on the dotted line, there is one more consideration that might affect your closing costs—or even the entire purchase. Next up: the Inspection

**Ryan Wheeler is an expert real estate agent and military veteran serving buyers and sellers of homes in the Shreveport Bossier City area.  Connect With Me