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Real Estate Library
As a broker/realtor affiliated with RE/MAX, and a member of the National Association of Realtors and other organizations, various information has been provided to me about real estate over a period of time. In turn, I decided to include what I consider key pieces of information in my web site's Real Estate Library.
All information included in my Real Estate Library has been obtained by me, along with the right to use the information to educate my clients and prospective clients about real estate. Keep in mind that this is generalized, limited information, and that you should always contact a real estate professional or attorney for advice about your particular situation.
The Real Estate Library can be reviewed by scrolling down this page. Or, you may select a topic from the following list to go directly to a topic of interest. Along the scrollable page, you will find links that will bring you back to the top of this page.
- Judy
Topics
Agency - Whose Side Are You On?
North Carolina Real Estate Agents and Brokers are required to identify themselves to you in one of three ways -- as a buyer's agent, as a seller's agent, or as a dual agent. Following is information provided by the North Carolina Real Estate Commission regarding agency and what you should expect from each type of agent, whether you're a buyer or a seller.
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Sellers
- Seller's Agent
If you are selling real estate, you may want to "list" your property for sale with a real estate firm. If so, you will sign a "listing agreement" authorizing the firm and its agents to represent you in your dealings with buyers as your seller's agent. You may also be asked to allow agents from other firms to help find a buyer for your property.
Be sure to read and understand the listing agreement before you sign it.
- Duties to Seller
The listing firm and its agents must promote your best interests, be loyal to you, follow your lawful instructions, provide you with all material facts that could influence your decisions, use reasonable skill, care and diligence, and account for all monies they handle for you.
Once you have signed the listing agreement, the firm and its agents may not give any confidential information about you to prospective buyers or their agents without your permission. But until you sign the listing agreement, you should avoid telling the listing agent anything you would not want a buyer to know.
- Services and Compensation
To help you sell your property, the listing firm and its agents will offer to perform a number of services for you. These may include helping you price your property, advertising and marketing your property, giving you all required property disclosure forms for you to complete, negotiating for you the best possible price and terms, reviewing all written offers with you, and otherwise promoting your interests.
For representing you and helping you sell your property, you will pay the listing firm a sales commission or fee. The listing agreement must state the amount or method for determining the commission or fee and whether you will allow the firm to share its commission with agents representing the buyer.
- Dual Agent
You may even permit the listing firm and its agents to represent you and a buyer at the same time. This "dual agency relationship" is most likely to happen if an agent with your listing firm is working as a buyer's agent with someone who wants to purchase your property. If this occurs and you have not already agreed to a dual agency relationship in your listing agreement, your listing agent will ask you to sign a separate agreement or document permitting the agent to act as agent for both you and the buyer.
It may be difficult for a dual agent to advance the interests of both the buyer and seller. Nevertheless, a dual agent must treat buyers and sellers fairly and equally. Although the dual agent owes them the same duties, buyers and sellers can prohibit dual agents from divulging certain confidential information about them to the other party.
Some firms also offer a form of dual agency called "designated agency" where one agent in the firm represents the seller and another agent represents the buyer. This option (when available) may allow each "designated agent" to more fully represent each party.
If you choose the "dual agency" option, remember that since a dual agent's loyalty is divided between parties with competing interests, it is especially important that you have a clear understanding of what your relationship is with the dual agent, and what the agent will be doing for you in the transaction.
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Buyers
- Buyer's Agent
- Duties to Buyer
If the real estate firm and its agents represent you, they must promote your best interests, be loyal to you, follow your lawful instructions, provide you with all material facts that could influence your decisions, use reasonable skill, care and diligence, and account for all monies they handle for you.
Once you have agreed (either orally or in writing) for the firm and its agents to be your buyer's agent, they may not give any confidential information about you to sellers or their agents without your permission. But until you make this agreement with your buyer's agent, you should avoid telling the agent anything you would not want a seller to know.
- Unwritten Agreements
To make sure that you and the real estate firm have a clear understanding of what your relationship will be and what the firm will do for you, you may want to have a written agreement. However, some firms may be willing to represent and assist you for a time as a buyer's agent without a written agreement. But if you decide to make an offer to purchase a particular property, the agent must obtain a written agency agreement. If you do not sign it, the agent can no longer represent and assist you and is no longer required to keep information about you confidential. Furthermore, if you later purchase the property through an agent with another firm, the agent who first showed you the property may seek compensation from the other firm.
Be sure to read and understand any agency agreement before you sign it.
- Services and Compensation
Whether you have a written or unwritten agreement, a buyer's agent will perform a number of services for you. These may include helping you find a suitable property, arrange financing , learn more about the property, and otherwise promote your best interests.
If you have a written agency agreement, the agent can also help you prepare and submit a written offer to the seller.
A buyer's agent can be compensated in different ways. For example, you can pay the agent out of your own pocket. Or the agent may seek compensation from the seller or listing agent first, but require you to pay if the listing agent refuses. Whatever the case, be sure your compensation arrangement with your buyer's agent is spelled out in a buyer agency agreement before you make an offer to purchase property and that you carefully read and understand the compensation provision.
- Dual Agent
You may permit an agent or firm to represent you and the seller at the same time. This "dual agency relationship" is most likely to happen if you become interested in a property listed with your buyer's agent or the agent's firm. If this occurs and you have not already agreed to a dual agency relationship in your (written or oral) buyer agency agreement, your buyer's agent will ask you to sign a separate agreement or document permitting him or her to act as agent for both you and the seller. It may be difficult for a dual agent to advance the interests of both the buyer and seller. Nevertheless, a dual agent must treat buyers and sellers fairly and equally. Although the dual agent owes them the same duties, buyers and sellers can prohibit dual agents from divulging certain confidential information about them to the other party.
Some firms also offer a form of dual agency called "designated agency" where one agent in the firm represents the seller and another agent represents the buyer. This option (when available) may allow each "designated agent" to more fully represent each party.
If you choose the "dual agency" option, remember that since a dual agent's loyalty is divided between parties with competing interests, it is especially important that you have a clear understanding of what your relationship is with the dual agent and what the agent will be doing for you in the transaction.
This can best be accomplished by putting the agreement in writing at the earliest possible time.
- Seller's Agent Working With a Buyer
If the real estate agent or firm that you contact does not offer buyer agency or you do not want them to act as your buyer agent , you can still work with the firm and its agents. However, they will be acting as the seller's agent (or "subagent"). The agent can still help you find and purchase property and provide many of the same services as a buyer's agent. The agent must be fair with you and provide you with any "material facts" (such as a leaky roof) about properties.
But remember, the agent represents the seller - not you - and therefore must try to obtain for the seller the best possible price and terms for the seller's property. Furthermore, a seller's agent is required to give the seller any information about you (even personal, financial or confidential information) that would help the seller in the sale of his or her property. Agents must tell you in writing if they are sellers' agents before you say anything that can help the seller. But until you are sure that an agent is not a seller's agent, you should avoid saying anything you do not want a seller to know.
Sellers' agents are compensated by the sellers.
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Five Questions You Should Ask Your Agent
1. Are you a Realtor?
Only licensed real estate agents who belong to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) are properly called Realtors. In addition to the education required of all North Carolina real estate agents and brokers, Realtors have access to additional education and certifications. They also have promised to uphold a code of ethics mandated by the NAR. In essence, they have actively promised to uphold your interests, as their clients, at the expense of their own personal interests, if necessary. While the North Carolina Real Estate Commission requires that agents and brokers put their clients' interests first, Realtors have made an active pledge to do so that other agents and brokers have not.
Another reason to use a Realtor is that, by and large, they are more likely to be active in the real estate community in Randolph County. The contacts that your agent has in his or her professional field can save you time and money regardless of whether you're buying or selling.
2. Do you work at this job full time?
You don't want to have to work at finding a home full-time. If you did, there wouldn't be any point in hiring someone else to do it for you. Perhaps the person who's been selling real estate for thirty years does know more about the local market than someone who's new to the game. But if the older person has cut back to only working fifteen or twenty hours a week, he or she may not be in the office when the perfect home for you flits across the computer screen. You want someone working for you who devotes a full work week to pursuing your interests.
3. Which neighborhoods or price ranges are most of your sales?
If you're looking for a home in a particular part of town, or in a particular part of the county, then there may be agents who are more or less familiar with those areas than other agents might be. By the same token, there are likely to be agents who are more experienced in lining up loans for people with lower incomes, agents who primarily sell homes with price tags above $300,000, or agents who specialize in farm properties or shared-interest properties (like condominiums). Asking agents about their areas of expertise will help you find an agent who fits you well and who has the most resources for finding the right home for you or the right buyer for your home.
4. How many properties have you sold in the past year?
There isn't any magic number, and you'll have to weigh your own instincts about an agent as well as the agent's answers to the other questions against this. But once you've asked a few agents this question, you'll have an idea of which agents are performing at about average and which are above or below average.
5. How long have you lived in Randolph County?
Again, there's no magic number of years here, but if you're going to be new to the area, working with someone who's been here for a while will help you with information you might not otherwise have.
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Buyers Tips
Before you get too involved in looking at houses, there are a few things you should do to prepare yourself to be in as good a position as possible to buy a home that you like and that will be an enjoyable place to live. A buyer's agent will help you with all of these steps.
#1 - Clean up your credit. If you're planning a move for six months from now, get a copy of your credit report and spend some time making sure that everything on it is accurate and up to date. Then set about improving your credit rating as much as possible, even if it's not bad.
- - If there are negative remarks on your report, have explanations ready for missed payments, foreclosures, repossessions, or judgments. If possible, either pay these debts or contact the creditors prior to beginning your house hunt. Since it can take sixty to ninety days for corrections to appear on your credit report, keep receipts for any debts that you retire.
- Retire (pay off) as much debt as possible. The lower your other outstanding debts are -- credit cards, car payments, educational and other loans -- the more money a bank or mortgage company sees as being available to pay your mortgage. Your debt to income ratio (the amount you pay each month vs. the amount that you earn each month) should be as low as possible.
- Cancel credit cards you no longer use, and, if you have cards with credit limits higher than you expect ever to use, have the limits lowered. Credit and mortgage companies see these as potential debts that you could incur, and that could lessen your ability to pay your mortgage.
- Your credit will influence the price range of homes that you can afford, so improving your credit as much as possible can help to raise the amount of house you can afford to buy, at what interest rate, and with how large a down payment. Make all of your payments on time while you're searching for a house. If it takes you a few months to find the right house, you don't want your credit to have taken a nosedive while you were in the market for a house.
#2 - Get pre-approved. Many lenders and brokers will prefer to have a specific house and a specific price prior to giving you a written letter of pre-approval, and certainly there are lots of steps in actually being approved for a loan. However, most lenders and brokers will be able to give you an informal estimate of the maximum amount that you could borrow, based on your credit score, your income, and your debts.
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Rent or Buy?
Though there are lots and lots of people who will tell you that buying a home is one of the best things you can do for yourself financially -- you're building equity and adding to your net worth, rent isn't tax deductible, etc. -- there are some instances when it makes more sense to rent than to buy. Here are a couple of them.
If you plan on moving in five years or less, you may be better off renting. Consider this. You pay $100,000 for a home that's actually worth $100,000, with a 20% down payment. Two years later, you're ready to sell. Your home has appreciated at about 6% per year. So now it's worth around $112,000. But when you sell, your real estate agent is going to take about 6% of your sales price. Suppose moving costs you about 2%. Suppose the housing market has taken a downturn -- you don't have enough equity to offset your sale expenses if you take even a couple thousand dollars less than your home's fair value. If you're in a hurry to move for whatever reason, that can land you in a situation where you're losing money by selling your house.
If you find a home to rent at a steal, then the long-term advantages of buying may not tip the scales when weighed against the short-term advantages of renting. Generally, if you can rent a home for 65% or less of what a comparable home would cost to buy (including taxes and insurance), then it's a steal. Keep in mind, of course, that when you move out of a rented home, you're not going to have any equity to cash in, and that rent increases over the years may change, while the payment on a fixed-rate mortgage won't. In other words, a $600 per month rental rate may be good now, but if it's risen to nearly $900 ten years later, while a $600 per month mortgage payment has remained the same, then the tables have turned, and your steal isn't quite as good a bargain as it originally was.
If your credit rating is nonexistent or if it isn't great, then you may be better off renting for a year or two while you rebuild and repair it. Certainly you can take a higher interest rate now, with a low credit score, and refinance once your credit rating has improved, but that's twice as many closing costs for you to pay.
If you don't have a down payment, you may want to wait on buying for the same reasons. There are many special loan programs available for people who can't make a down payment, for current and former members of the military, for teachers, etc. With a loan amount of greater than 80% of the value of your new home, though, you're probably going to pay mortgage insurance that could add pretty significantly to your monthly payment. That mortgage insurance payment amount is money that you could, instead, be socking away to put down on a house -- so that it's going toward your equity in your home, rather than to a mortgage guarantor in case you default.
This is not to imply that there aren't ways around all of these factors -- tax savings reduce the numbers in the first reason, for example. But if you're ambivalent about the responsibilities of homeownership anyway, or if your job or family situation is likely to make a move necessary in a fairly short time, you should probably consider carefully before you start looking to buy. The best advice is to talk to a real estate broker about your options.
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Seller's Tips
Preparing Your Home for Sale:
There are a number of steps that every seller needs at least to consider taking before putting the home on the market. A real estate agent can help you with and lead you through each of these steps.
- - Distance yourself. The first thing you need to do in order to sell your home is also one of the first reasons for hiring a real estate agent: Get unattached to it. Stop thinking of it as home, and start thinking of it as just a house. This isn't an easy thing for most people to do, particularly if you've lived in the house for a number of years. It may just be one more door to potential buyers, but to you it's the threshold you carried your bride over. Unfortunately, that you carried your wife over that threshold doesn't do much toward increasing its value. You (or, at the very least, someone you've hired) need to be able to look at your house objectively.
- Catch up on maintenance. The next thing you need to do are the repairs and replacements that you've meant to do but have been putting off. Your real estate agent will help you spot the cosmetic changes or repairs that are most likely to make your home sell faster and for a higher price. Try not to take offense if your real estate agent points out things that you've meant to do or have started but haven't finished. It's the agent's job to help you sell your house as quickly and for as high a price as possible. While you can expect the agent to put these suggestions in as pleasant a way as possible, keep in mind that if the agent didn't make the suggestions, the agent wouldn't be doing what you're paying the agent to do.
- Make your home as generic as possible -- because you should be seeing it as a house now, not as your home. If the walls need to be painted, and they've been any color other than off-white, repaint them off-white. If the carpet needs to be replaced anyway, replace it with a light beige. Take down your art, your family photos, your child's 4-H plaque. The people who enter your house will be imagining what it would look like with their things in it, if it were their house. The more of your personal belongings,the things that make the house yours, there are for potential buyers to overlook, the more difficult it is for them to imagine the house as their own.
- Clean up. Making your home as clean as possible for potential buyers to tour should go without saying, but it can also be easier said than done, particularly if you're still living in your house. Move the dog outside or to a relative's house until the house sells -- you may not notice the doggy smell, but a potential buyer who doesn't have a dog will notice it. If you have a cat, send it to stay with a relative or, at the very least, keep its litter box pristine. The same applies for any pet. If you have children, insist that their toys, clothes and other personal belongings stay out of sight whenever they aren't being used. If you aren't a topnotch housekeeper, become one for how ever long it takes for your house to sell. It won't be easy on anyone, probably, but you need to put your home's best foot forward.
- Make your house look spacious. Clean out anything you don't use on a regular basis, so that your house looks as roomy as possible. If there's a chair in the den that no one ever uses, get it out of there. If you can make do with just a food processor instead of a food processor, a blender and three hand tools for chopping, store everything except the food processor. Also, don't plan on storing these things in an attic or other storage space in the house that a potential buyer may want to see. You can rent a small self-storage space for a reasonable rate -- it's money well spent. If it looks as if you're cramped in your space, being cramped will figure into potential buyers' imaginations of the house as theirs. That's not the impression you want to leave with someone who could make an offer on your house.
- Pay attention to your house's curb appeal. The outside of the house should look pretty good, since you've finished all of those projects you had delayed or merely started. Now take a look at the yard. Try to stand at the curb and see your house with an objective eye, the way that someone who was seeing it for the first time would. (Again, your real estate agent can help with this.) Trim back bushes that obscure the view of the front of the house. Keep the grass cut. If flowers aren't blooming and thriving, either do something to perk them up or get rid of them. If you don't have flowers or any kind of landscaping, try to add some color to your yard, even if it's only a hanging basket on the porch. Replacing house numbers, cleaning mailboxes and a fresh coat of paint on the exterior of the front door can help make a good first impression.
- Don't smoke. All health and moral judgments aside, smoking inside your house reduces the segment of the market to whom it will appeal. If you must smoke, do it outside while your house is on the market. Your choice is between including everyone in your pool of potential buyers or restricting your pool to smokers and nonsmokers who don't mind the smell. And there aren't that many nonsmokers who don't mind the smell, particularly when they're trying to imagine a house as their new home.
There will probably be times while you are preparing to sell your house when you think, "If it had looked this good before, I would not have wanted to sell it." That is a good sign. The more you think you would like to keep it, the more likely it will be that it will appeal to someone else, too.
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Shared Interest Communities
A shared interest community is one in which all of the owners share ownership of some elements -- such as a condominium development, in which all of the unit owners also own, in common, the swimming pool or tennis courts. Planned subdivisions can also be shared interest communities, if all of the homeowners in the development own some of the elements in common -- for instance a community swimming pool, the roads, a club house, etc.
In a shared-interest community, some services that are provided to single-family homeowners outside of planned developments by municipalities are paid for privately by the homeowners in that community. For instance, if your condominium development has a private dumpster for trash removal, then each homeowner in the complex will have to kick in each month to pay for the dumpster to be emptied. Other such expenses would include insurance for the commonly owned areas, landscaping, accounting, management, lighting and maintenance for the parking lots, maintenance and upkeep of any amenities, etc. The monthly (or quarterly or annual) bill for each homeowner's share of these expenses is called an assessment, dues or fees. They generally should be sent to the homeowner's association or to its management company or representative each month (or quarter or year).
Ownership in a shared-interest community, regardless of the type, has both benefits and costs. Below are some of both that apply to all types of shared interest communities.
Benefits Include:
- - Lower maintenance costs
Certainly it's less expensive to pay a share of the upkeep on a swimming pool than it would be to pay for and maintain your own private pool. The same can be said for tennis courts and other amenities, as well.
In some types of shared communities, maintenance of the space you occupy is also shared by all of the community's owners. For instance, in a town home community, the homeowners may all assess themselves over an extended period to paint all of the town homes at one time.
- - Fewer chores
Some communities (and all condominium communities) have landscaping companies who mow the grass, blow the leaves and provide other outside maintenance that would otherwise be the homeowner's responsibility.
- - Sense of community
In most shared interest communities, since you and the other owners in the complex share ownership of at least some elements, you have many opportunities to meet your neighbors to get to know them.
- - Lower prices
Condominiums and town homes generally cost less than a single-family home of the same area and age would cost. Particularly if you factor in the costs associated with adding amenities to a single-family home whose costs you share with other owners in a shared-interest community.
- - Home Value Protection
Restrictive covenants and association bylaws, as well as the actions of the homeowner association's board of directors, are designed to protect the values of all of the homes in a community. By overseeing or restricting the types of homes that may be built and the appearance of those homes, homeowner associations strive to prevent the actions or inactions of one homeowner from having a negative effect on her neighbor's property value.
- - Community Involvement
Homeowner associations, at least once the developer is out of the picture, are structured so that each homeowner has a voice in the direction that the complex as a whole moves. Each member has a responsibility to put the interests of the whole community ahead of his or her own interests. The more involved its members are, the more efficiently a homeowners association tends to operate.
Costs:
- - Association Dues
Shared elements such as parking lots, parking lot lighting (and the electricity to run them), amenities such as pools, tennis courts or clubhouses are maintained by an owners association, which will collect dues from you to pay for these expenses. A common misunderstanding is to assume that the association is a separate entity that has its own source of income. It isn't, and it doesn't -- you own a portion of the common elements, and you must pay for their upkeep. If your association pays for exterior maintenance, that means that, ultimately, you pay your share of exterior maintenance.
- - Corporate Declaration and Restrictive Covenants.
In addition to paying for exterior maintenance to your unit and the grounds, the homeowners association will also have a say in what you can and cannot do outside of your home. For instance, in a single-family home development, the association may be able to forbid you to build a fence around your home, or may be able to tell you the maximum height of such a fence.
- - Condominium Ownership.
Condominiums are individually owned, and may be stacked on top of one another, or may be in a single level. The defining characteristic of a condominium is the style of ownership, not the style of architecture. The owner of a condominium owns the airspace inside of her unit, or, at most, the airspace outward through the drywall. She also owns a fraction of any common elements outside of her unit -- the roof, the tennis courts/pool/other amenities, the parking lots, the crawl space, any landscaping, etc. In other words, if there are thirty units in a complex, each owner owns one thirtieth of the areas outside of her unit.
- - Townhouse Ownership.
Townhouses are also individually owned, but are defined more by their architectural style than by any strict legal ownership characteristics. In general, townhouses are just what you'd imagine them to be -- two or more story, attached structures.
When you buy a town home, you buy not only the airspace and some drywall, but everything out to the exterior paint, the land under the home and perhaps out a few feet from the building or perhaps a number of acres around the building. Your maintenance responsibilities are for everything you've bought, unless the Restrictive Covenants make your homeowner's association responsible for siding replacement or painting. This is often the case, so that uniformity can be maintained throughout the complex. However, if it is not the case, or if there is no set of Restrictive Covenants, then you and your neighbor will need to be prepared to work together if your common crawl space gets termites or if one of you decides to paint. Again, with or without a homeowners association, you can benefit from an economy of scale in costs for major repairs.
- - Planned Development Ownership.
Planned Developments are generally single-family homes built by a single developer as a community, or a combination of housing or architectural styles built in a single community. There may or may not be common elements. If there are no common elements (check about the streets -- if they have not been dedicated to a governmental agency, they are a common element), then there may very well be no homeowners association. In that case, your home is as much yours -- for better or for worse -- as it would be if you had built it yourself on ten acres of land, ten years after your nearest neighbor built his house. If there are amenities or if the streets are privately owned, though, be prepared for a bill from the homeowners association and for an invitation to its annual meeting.
- Summary
If you are considering buying in a shared interest community, talk to your real estate agent about all of the nuances of shared ownership. Find out if the homeowners association in your potential community employs a management agency and if relations with the management are good. Try to get a feeling for whether the homeowners association is well run and if it is saving into a reserve fund for major eventual expenses -- when the pool has to be resurfaced or the buildings painted, you will want for the association to have been saving. Keep in mind that low monthly assessments are both good and bad -- they won't increase your monthly expenses by much, but how well is the complex being maintained?
Be sure to visit the NC Real Estate Commission's web site for more information and more details about ownership in shared interest communities, particularly if you're considering buying in a complex where construction has not yet been completed.
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Termites
Subterranean termites are the most destructive pest in North America. Termites live underground and build tunnels which provide them with a sheltered pathway to their foodstuff -- wood. Sometimes the wood is a dead tree, deep in the forest. Other times, the wood is a floor joist in your home.
North Carolina and the southeastern United States as a whole are crawling with termites. Though some lenders do not require a termite inspection prior to closing on a home purchase, like a home inspection, it's not something that you should skip.
A termite inspector will inspect all of the surfaces of the home that come in contact with the ground, because except for during a period in April when they swarm, termites remain underground or inside the wood that they're devouring. The inspector will look for the tunnels that termites use to move from the ground into wood and also inside any wood that he finds to be suspicious. After the inspection, you'll receive a report that will show what areas were inspected as well as the final verdict. If termites or termite damage is found, you will want to negotiate with the seller about who should repair the damage and have the home treated. Traditionally this has been the seller's responsibility, but, like everything else, it can be negotiated.
Once the home is treated, you will be offered a termite bond by the pest control company. Whether to take this offer is up to you. A bond requires that the pest control company return to your home once a year and re-inspect for termite activity, and requires that you pay a fee each year for the inspection and for the bond itself. Most bonds guarantee free re-treatment if termites are found during an annual inspection, and some companies even promise free repair of any damage that termites have done while the bond was in place. The cost of a termite bond is usually about a tenth of the cost of treatment (each year), so if you allow the bond to expire, or choose not to take it when the inspection is done, chances are that you'll get termites sometime in the next ten years and be paying for treatment again. If you plan to stay in the house for ten years or more, it's generally worth it to take the bond and pay annually for "termite insurance." If you put the house on the market sooner, then you may or may not have termites when your potential buyers have their inspection done. If you do, then you'll be glad to have chosen to pay for the bond over the time that you've owned the home -- because treatment will be free. If you don't have termites, then perhaps you could've saved the money you spent on the bond. The decision depends on your financial situation and on how lucky you feel.
Even homes that have been treated and bonded may eventually become infected (though usually if a home has been treated and the bond maintained, infestation and damage are localized). Most termite or pest control companies will offer a warranty against damage, and promise either to retreat for free if termites are later found in your home (and if your termite bond has been maintained) or even to repair termite damage that might occur subsequent to treatment (and maintenance of the bond).
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Why Buy?
The best part about buying a home is the way it makes you feel -- there's no way to put a price tag on the satisfaction of closing the front door and knowing that the door and everything attached to it belongs to you. Closing that door can also cause a sinking feeling, though -- worries about the roof, plumbing leaks, that aging HVAC unit, termites, and on and on and on. There are three good financial reasons for you to take heart, though, and enjoy the satisfaction of homeownership.
- The interest you pay is fully tax deductible.
As long as the home you've bought is for use as a primary residence or as a vacation home, the interest you pay on your mortgage can all come off of your taxes. Consider that Uncle Sam isn't doing anything to help you with the 13% interest you're paying on your credit card debit, and this starts to seem like a pretty good deal. Consider also that during the first years of a mortgage, most of what you're paying is interest. So at least for the first years of owning your home, you'll be getting a tax break on most of what you spend in housing costs.
- Property taxes are tax deductible.
This may not seem like that much comfort if your mortgage holder isn't socking enough away in your escrow account over the course of the year and you end up with a tax bill to pay out of pocket. But when April 15 rolls around, you'll be glad to have another deduction to add in along with the interest on your mortgage.
- Your home equity can serve as collateral for other loans.
In other words, if you make a wise choice on your home, make a sizable down payment, make improvements, or just live in it for a while, your home will likely be worth more than you owe on your mortgage. That's called equity, and that's a good thing. It means that you can get a loan from a bank, with your home as collateral, that's likely to be at a lower interest rate than you'd pay without the house as collateral. It's also likely to be tax deductible. Which leads us back to Good Financial Reason #1: interest that you pay on a home equity loan is likely to be tax deductible just like the interest on your first mortgage. And that, once again, beats paying a credit card company a higher interest rate and not getting Uncle Sam's help in paying that interest.
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Twenty Tips To Help You Sell Your Home
As a homeowner, you can play an important part in the timely sale of your property. When you take the following steps, you'll help your RE/MAX Sales Associate sell your home faster, at the best possible price.
The easiest and most reliable way to improve the appeal of your home is to enlist a quality home service professional. The right professional can help you get everything in order - from repainting the kitchen to providing a thorough cleaning - so you can stay focused on more important things.
1 - Make the Most of that First Impression
A well-manicured lawn, neatly trimmed shrubs and a clutter-free porch welcome prospects. So does a freshly painted - or at least freshly scrubbed - front door. If it's autumn, rake the leaves. If it's winter, shovel the walkways. The fewer obstacles between prospects and the true appeal of your home, the better.
2 - Invest a Few Hours for Future Dividends
Here's your chance to clean up in real estate. Clean up the living room, the bathroom, the kitchen. If your woodwork is scuffed or the paint is fading, consider some minor redecoration. Fresh wallpaper adds charm and value to your property. If you're worried about time, hire professional cleaners or painters to get your house ready. Remember, prospects would rather see how great your home really looks than hear how great it could look "with a little work".
3 - Check Faucets and Bulbs
Dripping water rattles the nerves, discolors sinks, and suggests faulty or worn-out plumbing. Burned out bulbs or faulty wiring leave prospects in the dark. Don't let little problems detract from what's right with your home.
4 - Don't Shut Out a Sale
If cabinets or closet doors stick in your home, you can be sure they will also stick in a prospect's mind. Don't try to explain away sticky situations when you can easily plane them away. A little effort on your part can smooth the way toward a closing.
5 - Think Safety
Homeowners learn to live with all kinds of self-set booby traps: roller skates on the stairs, festooned extension cords, slippery throw rugs and low hanging overhead lights. Make your residence as non-perilous as possible for uninitiated visitors.
6 - Make Room for Space
Remember, potential buyers are looking for more than just comfortable living space. They're looking for storage space, too. Make sure your attic and basement are clean and free of unnecessary items.
7 - Consider Your Closets
The better organized a closet, the larger it appears. Now is the time to box up those unwanted clothes and donate them to charity.
8 - Make Your Bathroom Sparkle
Bathrooms sell homes, so let them shine. Check and repair damaged or unsightly caulking in the tubs and showers. For added allure, display your best towels, mats, and shower curtains.
9 - Create Dream Bedrooms
Wake up prospects to the cozy comforts of your bedrooms. For a spacious look, get rid of excess furniture. Colorful bedspreads and fresh curtains are a must.
10 - Open up in the Daytime
Let the sun shine in! Pull back your curtains and drapes so prospects can see how bright and cheery your home is.
11 - Lighten up at Night
Turn on the excitement by turning on all your lights - both inside and outside - when showing your home in the evening. Lights add color and warmth, and make prospects feel welcome.
12 - Avoid Crowd Scenes
Potential buyers often feel like intruders when they enter a home filled with people. Rather than giving your house the attention it deserves, they're likely to hurry through. Keep the company present to a minimum.
13 - Watch Your Pets
Dogs and cats are great companions, but not when you're showing your home. Pets have a talent for getting underfoot. So do everybody a favor: Keep Kitty and Spot outside, or at least out of the way.
14 - Think Volume
Rock-and-roll will never die. But it might kill a real estate transaction. When it's time to show your home, it's time to turn down the stereo or TV.
15 - Relax
Be friendly, but don't try to force conversation. Prospects want to view your home with a minimum of distraction.
16 - Don't Apologize
No matter how humble your abode, never apologize for its shortcomings. If a prospect volunteers a derogatory comment about your home's appearance, let your experienced RE/MAX Associate handle the situation.
17 - Keep a Low Profile
Nobody knows your home as well as you do. But RE/MAX Sales Associates know buyers - what they need and what they want. Your RE/MAX Associate will have an easier time articulating the virtues of your home if you stay in the background.
18 - Don't Turn Your Home into a Second-Hand Store
When prospects come to view your home, don't distract them with offers to sell those furnishings you no longer need. You may lose the biggest sale of all.
19 - Defer to Experience
When prospects want to talk price, terms, or other real estate matters, let them speak to an expert - your RE/MAX Sales Associate.
20 - Help Your Agent
Your RE/MAX Associate will have an easier time selling your home if showings are scheduled through his or her office. You'll appreciate the results!
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Mortgage Loan Application Checklist
- Employment History And Income Sources
- Name, address and phone numbers of all employers for past two years
- Past two years W-2's
- Most recent pay stub from employer
- Self Employment & Commissioned Income
- Past two years tax returns with all schedules (individual, partnership and corporate)
- Current balance sheet and YTD income statements for the business owned
- Sources Of Funds For Closing
- Name, address and account numbers for all checking, savings and investment accounts
- Most recent bank statements on all accounts
- Closing statement on sale of a prior home
- If using gift funds, we can help prepare gift letter and verify funds
- Debts & Obligations
- Provide account number, monthly payments, and approximate balance for all debts
- Auto Loans
- Signature Loans
- Mortgage Loans (need address
- Credit Cards
- Landlord (need address)
- Miscellaneous Information & Documents
- Initial deposit for credit report and appraisal
- Copy of Earnest Money Agreement/Contract
- Child care letter & explanation
- Bankruptcy papers and discharge, if applicable
- Photo ID and Social Security cards (FHA only)
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