If you are looking for a new home to buy, The Lawhead Team would like to share some helpful tips to help the new home shopping experience be a pleasant one.

1. Make sure you will not have to move in the near future. If you can’t commit to remaining in one place for at least a few years, then owning is probably not for you, at least not yet.
2. Make sure your credit is in line. In most cases, you will need to get a mortgage to buy a new home and in order to do that, your credit must be as clean as possible. Get a credit report and fix any problems you discover. The sooner the better!
3. Know how much house you can afford. A good rule of thumb is you can buy a new home that runs about 2 ½ times your annual salary. Get pre-approved for your loan before you start looking at homes that are appealing to you.
4. Check out the neighborhood and school district in the area for your new home you are looking. Even if you don’t have children, when it comes to sell, strong school district homes are a top priority for many home buyers, thus helping boost your property values.
5. Hire professionals during your new home buying process. First you should have a professional real estate agent on your side to help with finding a new home and going through the entire escrow process. Once you find the home you like, hire a home inspector to point out potential problems that could require costly repairs down the road.

Buying a home can be a stressful and exciting event and knowing what you will be faced with before you take the leap of buying a home is helpful.

The Lawhead Team would like to share some helpful tips to buying a home.

• First you should ask yourself why you want to buy. Do you want to stop renting? Will a home make your family happy 10 years from now? Home ownership is definitely part of the American dream but it may not be right for everyone.
• Figure out your financial aspects of purchasing your home. A home is usually the largest purchase most people make and a home loan is usually needed in order to finance the purchase. Make sure to review your credit score before you start your home buying process.
• Depending on the size of your loan, you will have to come up with anywhere from 3.5% to 25% down payment when buying a home.
• Next you need to get pre-approved for a home loan. If you have been long-time customers of your personal bank or credit union, it is a good idea to approach them first for your home loan. These lenders are usually more inclined to show favor to a longtime customer in order to keep their business.
• Once you get pre-approved, you can start house hunting. Seek out a good real estate agent who knows the area you are buying a home in. Real estate agents can help buyers stay on track with personal and financial objectives while you are buying a home.
• When you find a home you’d like to put an offer in on, don’t be surprised if you enter a bidding war. During these times of low inventory, homes have multiple offers on them. Once the bid is accepted, contact your loan officer immediately. Your loan officer and real estate agent will coordinate the purchase and sales agreements, appraisal and review the title records.
• Once everything goes through, you will sign the loan papers and you will now be a happy home owner. Now it is time to move in and call your house a home.

Do you have questions about buying a home? Please contact The Lawhead Team.

With the high cost and multiple expenses of buying a home, buyers sometimes look to avoid certain out of pocket costs such as a home inspection. Unfortunately, this is an invaluable tool that should home be eliminated.

A home inspection will give you a visual analysis of all the systems in the home as well as the home’s structure. The goal of a home inspection is to see if there is anything in the home that is not performing as it should and is unsafe or beyond its useful life. An inspection will cover the interior and exterior of the home.

A home inspection is not a warranty but it gives the buyer some sort of recourse including asking the seller to make repairs or cancelling the purchase contract.

But why do I need a home inspection? The main reason is that it will buy you some piece of mind and coverage. Without a home inspection, if something goes wrong with one of the major systems in your home after closing, you have no way of recourse for the seller to fix the problem. Knowing the home has a certain issue ahead of time allows you to be more prepared and also gives you more options.

When searching for a home inspector, verify the amount of experience they have in the industry first. Inspectors with affiliations or professional memberships tend to not only be more informed but also more serious about their jobs. It is important to make sure your inspector carries professional liability insurance.

When getting a thorough home inspection, it should cover the condition of the home’s electrical system, heating system, plumbing, central air conditioning system, the roof, visible insulation, attic, walls, floors, ceilings, foundation, doors, windows, landscaping, basement and visible structure.

A professional, thorough home inspection will help you to understand any potential problems in the home and is certainly well worth the cost. An inspector that charges significantly less than others in the area may not provide you with a full report. Remember, you get what you pay for. It will be much more expensive to repair problems that were left out of an inspection report that was not thorough.

If you are buying a newly constructed home, one may wonder if a home inspection is needed.  We believe it is important to have ANY home inspected no matter how new or old it is.

Many people mistakenly believe that they don’t need a home inspection on a new house. The misconception is understandable because as consumers we have been conditioned to believe that consumer products of all types will be delivered without defects. Unfortunately this is not true, especially in the new construction market.

Quality control programs in new construction vary widely in the field and many contractors do it by the seat of their pants if at all. They usually get away with this because they have learned from experience what kind of mistakes are going to show up as a problem during the warranty period, if a home inspection is not performed. As a result there are likely to be hidden defects that will show up later in the life of the house, after the builder warranty has expired.

Homeowners often encounter these problems after the first year or two not knowing they are related to construction error if they do not initially have a home inspection performed. For instance, brick veneer is installed on about 90% of the new houses built in this area. Most people do not realize that brick is not waterproof. To compensate for this, construction standards, including the building codes, require a drainage plane behind the brick along with flashing and weep holes that will guide any water that penetrates the brick, back to the outside.

It is not uncommon nowadays to see brick veneer installed without all the required flashing.  As a result water may enter the interior wall and ceiling space and cause all kinds of problems including damage to walls, ceilings and floors and issues with mold, mildew and fungus.

Again, most homeowners don’t realize that the problems they see even 5 or 6 years after they move in are the result of code violations. If you are looking to purchase a newly constructed home, please make sure a home inspection is performed.

A home inspection is a crucial step all home buyers should include in their home buying process.  A home inspector can ensure your new home will be a sound investment and a safe place to live.  Check out these home inspection tips:

Make sure to have new construction inspected – Even experienced homebuyers sometimes make this rookie mistake. They assume that because a home has passed all local codes and ordinances, it must be in good shape.

Don’t assume your builder — or the contractors — did everything right just because the home passed code. A home inspector is your last line of defense against major defects that could quite literally sink your financial future.

Choose a home inspector for the right reasons – When you choose home inspector, you’re selecting the professional who will give one of your biggest investments a full physical checkup. You want to choose someone you know who is competent, thorough and trustworthy. Unfortunately, too many buyers just go with the cheapest inspection company or the one recommended by their Realtor.

The lease expensive may mean the least experience. Ask for two or three different names from your realtor and interview each one.  Go with the home inspector you feel most comfortable with.

Always ask about licensing, professional affiliations and credentials, and whether the inspector carries errors and omissions insurance.

Don’t skip out on having a written report from the inspection – The written report you get from the home inspector doesn’t give you nearly as clear a picture of the condition of the house as you might think. Buyers who don’t go along on the inspection can overemphasize minor problems, or worse, not realize how serious a defect is.

Make sure to follow up on the home inspectors recommendations – Sometimes, buyers don’t follow up on items discovered in the inspection before they close. Like the man who didn’t grasp that the carbon monoxide coming from his water heater was a big problem, you may not realize how much it will cost to fix a given defect. Often home inspector will recommend buyers get an issue evaluated further, but the buyers wait to do it until after closing.

Have you heard of the phrase “one person’s misery is another person’s opportunity”?  For house purchasers in today’s market, repossessed property definitely falls into this case.

It isn’t hard to notice the rise in number of repossessed property coming on the market as of late.  These can be great bargains to pick up, however there are certain issues which you must be aware of when buying a repossessed house.

Once the home has gone through the long process of going back to the lender, they must take responsibility to sell it for the best price possible in the shortest amount of time possible.  This is because it is only until the property has been sold that the mortgage debt is cleared.

With a repossessed property, the purchase process is similar to a normal purchase.  However, it is likely that you will not be able to get as much information about the house as you would from a standard sale since the lender has never lived in it.  For example, if changes were made to the house or repairs for a leaky roof were completed, you may not be able to obtain all the paperwork pertinent to these changes or improvement.  Because of this, it is important to do thorough research on the property before committing to buying it.

Unfortunately, the lender has the ability to pull out of the sale at any time until the contract is legally binding should a better offer come in.  Remember, once you purchase a repossessed property, you will have to arrange for services to be reconnected, such as electricity, water, etc.  When this is done, more problems may arise that you were not at first aware of, such as leaking pipes.

There are a lot of details you should know about and things to prepare for when buying a home – especially the various costs involved with the initial purchase and the monthly payments.

Buying a home is a big decision and there are many other factors other than just the monthly mortgage you will have to be responsible for.  When first buying a home, there are various items that cost money initially, along with recurring monthly costs.

Your realtor, The Lawhead Team, will help explain every detail of what these costs are and where exactly they are going.  The Lawhead Team can help you determine how much you can afford and what you can afford and what exactly you will need to set aside for any extras.

On top of a monthly mortgage, there are other fees such as insurance, taxes and sometimes legal fees.  Below is a list of some various costs you might come across as a home buyer and should keep in mind to prepare for.

–Application Fee – If your lending institution has to charge to process your mortgage application, you will encounter an “application fee”.  Most of the time if you are dealing with a bank you currently have other accounts with, they will waive the fee.

–Appraisal Fee – An appraisal is usually done by someone on the lender’s staff or by an outside professional hired by the lender.  Usually, the lender loans a percentage of the home’s purchase price or the market appraisal of the property, whichever is lower.  In most cases, the cost of the appraisal ends up being the responsibility of the home buyer.

-Home Inspection Fee – An inspection of the home is highly recommended before confirming your final offer on a home.  This will notify the buyer of any potentially large or small costs they will incur once the home is theirs.

–Home Insurance – If you are putting less than 25% down on your home, you will need to purchase mortgage insurance.  There are also other types of insurance that may be required when buying your home such as fire insurance, title insurance, life insurance and more.

–Land Survey Fee – A plot plan or survey of the property is required by lenders.  If your home is in a subdivision in an urban area, lenders will usually accept an existing survey.  However if there has never been a survey done on the land, prepare to pay a significant fee for a new survey.

–Legal Fees – You will need to have a lawyer arrange your mortgage as well as “disbursements” such as title search, drawing up the title deed and preparing and registering the mortgage.

There may be other costs you come across as well which we have not mentioned above.  Of course there are utilities, such as gas, electric, cable, etc along with the possible HOA fees depending on where you live.

We suggest putting away money each month for any necessary repairs or unseen maintenance that may come up.  Even with additional costs, buying a home is definitely affordable for many people.  As long as you know what to expect and budget your money wisely, you will be enjoying your new home in no time!

You will feel less pressured to pick the first home inspector you meet when you find the right home.   It is important to make sure him or her is well trained and insured.

Remember, you are relying on someone’s professional evaluation to be a major player in deciding on the biggest investment of your life.  Below are some helpful tips in choosing the right one:

• First, interview multiple inspectors and ask plenty of questions.  You can also ask your friends and family for recommendations.
• It is important for your home inspector to have had proper training in all aspects of home inspection as well as ongoing training for any changes in construction techniques and systems.
• Find out how long they’ve been in business; gather a list of references and check his/her background.  Certification of a reputable training institute, which also requires re-testing annually, is important to research.
• Make sure the home inspector is independent and has no relationship with the seller in any way.
• Certify the home inspector has insurance – including general liability, worker’s compensation and especially Errors and Omissions Insurance, which is comparable to malpractice insurance.
• The inspector must provide you with a report along with a written guarantee to back up his inspection findings.

If you follow these guidelines above, you should be ahead of the game finding a home inspector that will work to your benefit.  As mentioned above, it is important to interview a few before you find the house you really want so you aren’t inclined to go with the first inspector you come across.