There are some simple steps that homebuyers often miss when looking for their new home. Taking the time to consider these steps can save you thousands of dollars, but more importantly, can smooth the process of buying a new home, saving time and money, as well as alleviating stressful situations in advance.
1. Begin by being up front and honest with your REALTOR and lender about your credit history. Your credit, whether good or bad, affects everything from your down payment to your interest rates. Your REALTOR or a professional mortgage consultant can often advise you as to how you can get credit problems cleared up or completely eliminated from your credit report before you apply for financing or make an offer on a new home.
2. Getting pre-qualified for a loan by a professional lender before you begin your search for a new home will allow you to know in advance exactly what kind, and how much, mortgage you can afford. This makes it possible for you to make an offer on your new home with confidence that enough funding is available.
3. If the seller does not offer a home warranty on the house you want, ask your REALTOR to make it a part of the written offer that you make. A home warranty can save you thousands of dollars in repairs, and can often be obtained for a very nominal annual fee. A standard warranty covers the electrical, plumbing, heating and air conditioning systems as well as major home appliances.
4. Ask your REALTOR for a market analysis of the home, in comparison to similar homes in the neighborhood or throughout the city, before you make an offer. A home is not just a place where you live - it is also an investment. Take the time to view several homes before you make an offer so you know exactly what is on the market. Be certain you are making a wise investment.
5. Make your offer contingent upon a home inspection and ask the seller to make the required repairs. Hire a professional to inspect every aspect of the home thoroughly. This can save you thousands of dollars in costly repairs and many headaches in the future. A good inspection can also allow you to negotiate for any repairs prior to closing. If the seller is not willing to make the necessary repairs, remind them that the lender will also require the home to be in good condition before they make a loan for the purchase.
6. Take into account your present homeowner or renter status. If you already own a home and must sell it before you buy a new one, it is best to get a REALTOR to do a complete market analysis on your present home. This allows you to know how much you can sell your current home for before you make an offer on a new one. If you are leasing or renting, the lease's expiration date will give you a timetable for your new purchase. Review this with your REALTOR well in advance of when you want to move.
7. Choose your agent wisely. Working with a full-time professional real estate agent is a must. Ask questions of your agent. Find out how knowledgeable he or she is about houses currently for sale in your price range and also of houses that have recently sold. Can your agent recommend a good lender that has the reputation of excellent customer service and low rates? Does your agent ask questions of you to have a full understanding of what you are looking for and to help you get the most home for the money?
http://www.realestateinvestmentarticles.net/Article/home-buying----Home-Buyers--How-to-Avoid-Costly-Mistakes--/3100
Monday, August 6, 2007
Kenya's Middle-Class Home-Buying Boom
NAIROBI -- One recent Sunday, Paul Abeno, a mid-level computer sales executive, shuffled through aisles of brass cabinet pulls, colored tiles and tiny glass-encased models of three-bedroom homes landscaped with paper trees. He stared through the glass at Baobab Village.
"Too late," he said to himself, noting the sold-out sign.
But there were other offerings at the third annual home expo here, and he wandered over to Acacia Court, Simba Villas and Green Park, three of the many new developments along the Kenyan capital's edges.
"I was told all these are bought and everyone's moved in," Abeno said, looking down at the red roofs. "I've just come to see what's on offer so in the near future I can get one for myself."
Traipsing through the Nairobi Exhibition and Convention Center on this weekend were small-business owners, teachers, civil servants, farmers, recent college graduates and others, who make up a group of Kenyans often invisible to the outside world: neither desperately poor nor outlandishly rich but someplace in between.
On a continent where people are often trying to escape or simply survive, here were people perusing six-burner stoves who said they wished to stay, aspiring homeowners who have been fueling what amounts to a construction boom in this east African city of skyscrapers and rusted slums; leafy, moneyed neighborhoods; and lately, it seems, a thousand half-built cinder-block condominiums with pools, gyms and broadband Internet.
Although the Kenyan economy is growing at 6 percent a year, economists are uncertain whether the proliferation of new housing and accompanying mortgages reflects a growing middle class or simply a more prosperous one.
The dominant economic picture of the country, they say, is one of entrenched inequality, with the number of people slipping into poverty increasing and the gap between rich and poor widening.
But that statistical picture does not account for the sense of fragile optimism along the aisles at the convention center on a Sunday or, for that matter, around a city where billboards advertising mortgages promise "a new lifestyle" with images of a well-dressed man walking across a sun-splattered lawn.
"Looking at these houses, you see a whole life," said Nicholas Kinoti, a clothing designer with his own shop, which caters to a wealthy clientele. "I thought instead of paying rent, I could adjust and pay a mortgage."
He was among dozens swarming the booth for a new development of Kansas-made prefabricated houses called Green Park, whose managing director is a former aid worker who once dealt with the Ethiopian famine.
Kinoti counts himself among a relatively small but notable group of Kenyans who have climbed their way into a kind of life their parents barely imagined. His mother and father were subsistence farmers and managed to send their son to a university in Nairobi. He got a job with a travel agency afterward and, with help from brochures of Paris and heavy doses of television, developed a taste for fashion and an urban lifestyle.;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/18/AR2007061801621.html
"Too late," he said to himself, noting the sold-out sign.
But there were other offerings at the third annual home expo here, and he wandered over to Acacia Court, Simba Villas and Green Park, three of the many new developments along the Kenyan capital's edges.
"I was told all these are bought and everyone's moved in," Abeno said, looking down at the red roofs. "I've just come to see what's on offer so in the near future I can get one for myself."
Traipsing through the Nairobi Exhibition and Convention Center on this weekend were small-business owners, teachers, civil servants, farmers, recent college graduates and others, who make up a group of Kenyans often invisible to the outside world: neither desperately poor nor outlandishly rich but someplace in between.
On a continent where people are often trying to escape or simply survive, here were people perusing six-burner stoves who said they wished to stay, aspiring homeowners who have been fueling what amounts to a construction boom in this east African city of skyscrapers and rusted slums; leafy, moneyed neighborhoods; and lately, it seems, a thousand half-built cinder-block condominiums with pools, gyms and broadband Internet.
Although the Kenyan economy is growing at 6 percent a year, economists are uncertain whether the proliferation of new housing and accompanying mortgages reflects a growing middle class or simply a more prosperous one.
The dominant economic picture of the country, they say, is one of entrenched inequality, with the number of people slipping into poverty increasing and the gap between rich and poor widening.
But that statistical picture does not account for the sense of fragile optimism along the aisles at the convention center on a Sunday or, for that matter, around a city where billboards advertising mortgages promise "a new lifestyle" with images of a well-dressed man walking across a sun-splattered lawn.
"Looking at these houses, you see a whole life," said Nicholas Kinoti, a clothing designer with his own shop, which caters to a wealthy clientele. "I thought instead of paying rent, I could adjust and pay a mortgage."
He was among dozens swarming the booth for a new development of Kansas-made prefabricated houses called Green Park, whose managing director is a former aid worker who once dealt with the Ethiopian famine.
Kinoti counts himself among a relatively small but notable group of Kenyans who have climbed their way into a kind of life their parents barely imagined. His mother and father were subsistence farmers and managed to send their son to a university in Nairobi. He got a job with a travel agency afterward and, with help from brochures of Paris and heavy doses of television, developed a taste for fashion and an urban lifestyle.;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/18/AR2007061801621.html
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