So we have been on the house hunt and finally found the home you would like to own! Congratulations now to making an offer and negotiations.

Now that we have found the home, there is some paper work and hard decisions to be made. In the offer, we need to decide what price we are willing to by the home for, when you would like to occupy the home, do you want inspections and how much earnest deposit do we need to put down.

1-¬†¬†¬† Offer Price- This is where I come in and help you understand value of the home. From looking up days on the market, what the home sold for last and what homes sold for around the area, we can determine what the fair market value is for the home. We make an offer that seems to equal fair market value or better based on the things above. Sometimes buyers just want to low ball and see what happens which is fine as long as we can prove value, but it doesn’t make since to do just because we think we can.

2-    Occupancy- On the listing card it will show what the seller prefers for occupancy.  This date can be at close or they may want up to 30 days after close to move out. This can be a negotiation piece if they want to stay there. You can sometimes get a lower price, or ask them to pay rent for the time after close.

3-    Home Inspection- You as a buyer can choose to have a home inspection done or not. I highly recommend you choose to have one done. Think of a home inspection as $300 that might end up saving you thousands.  Our personally preferred inspectors is ACE Home Inspection.

4-¬†¬†¬† Earnest deposit- This makes the offer official.¬† You now need to put some money down called an ‘earnest deposit’ on the home with the offer. This shows the seller you have something riding on the offer and you are serious. Depending on how much you put towards your earnest deposit will show how serious you are. The lowest you can put down is $500 but often it is $1000 or 1% of offer price. This will go into the transaction towards your closing cost or down payment. The only way of losing these funds is if you back out of the transaction later into the process.

5-    Closing Cost- The final step is to decide if you need the seller to help you with closing costs. This can be asked for but often you pay a high price for the home because the seller will make less. So we will decide together if either a lower price or you needing help with your closing cost is more important.

6-    After that is all done we give the seller 24-48 hours to think the offer over and give us their response. Also see Negotiations.

See other first time homebuyer blogs for more information.

Feel free to contact us for more information.