Make an offer
Once you’ve been pre-approved for a home loan with a mortgage lender and found the home that best suits your needs, your real estate agent can work with you to formulate an appropriate offer for purchase. Beyond the price, you as buyer a may wish to make your offer contingent upon certain repairs, upgrades, allowances, amenities (sell with major appliances, etc.) or other condition. Just as you and your agent will be seeking the lowest price for a home, the seller is looking to generate top dollar. Your realtor will negotiate terms on your behalf to help make sure you don’t pay too much for your home and avoid costly mistakes.
Understand market conditions
Your real estate agent can provide you a list of recently sold homes, or “comps” with the asking and sales prices of comparable homes in the area for a given period of time, which can help you establish a pricing benchmark for your offer. Additionally, your offer should take into account the current real estate market. A hot real estate is advantageous to sellers, where homes often sell quickly (upon listing or even before listing) and typically above the asking price. A normal market is a relatively neutral market, with a healthy inventory of buyers and homes for sale. A normal market typically increases the opportunity to negotiate. In a cold market, houses may be listed for a long period of time and see dramatically reduced asking prices, which is advantageous to the buyer.
Contingencies & earnest money deposit
This is more critical in normal or hot market conditions, but you can enhance the strength of your offer to purchase by minimizing the number of contingencies to a motivated seller. Your offer and written contract should state specifically what items are to be included in the sale. Having a considerable deposit amount also indicates your readiness to buy and willingness to enter into contract for purchase.
Inspections and property surveys
As a buyer, it is critical to have a property you intend to purchase inspected by a professional to evaluate its condition and identify any problems before you buy. Most real estate contracts have built in contingencies for inspection, but it is advisable to be present at a home inspection with your agent in order to ask questions about any items that might require repairs or replacement. An inspection is your opportunity to learn exactly what you are buying and have its present condition documented. An updated property survey will clearly define property values and identify potential problems as well.