A New Home Seller Resource

Wow! Today’s market is crazy. Homes are going under contract within days of being listed and are generally being sold for more than what fair market price was a mere month ago. It is a Seller’s Market for sure.

Values continue to rise

I want to talk about a few things.

• Why do people hesitate to sell?
• You’ve Got an Offer – How to be sure the Buyer is going to be able to buy?
• What is your home worth right now?
• What are things to consider when selling a home?

Some people are hesitant to sell because they have nowhere to go. As a Realtor, I can make several recommendations to help you with that. Let’s say we are out looking at new homes for you because you have decided to downsize a bit and pull your equity out of your current home while it is so high right now. While you are looking, someone makes an excellent offer on your home – one you don’t want to pass up. What to do? Well, we can write in a contingency to the contract that says the closing date will be determined by the purchase of your yet-to-find home. So, when you go do find a home and close on it, we also close on the sale of your home. It takes coordination, but that is one thing your Realtor is there for. Let’s say you just aren’t finding what you want – but you don’t want to pass up the excellent offer you have received. We could ask for a later closing date or you could consider temporarily storing your household goods and renting a small home or apartment until the right forever home comes available. If you decided to buy a new construction home, this is definitely a consideration because they are taking four to six months from start to finish on the new homes.

Another option would be to close on time, bank the money, and then rent your current home until you find something to buy. There are some buyers out there who would gladly accept this option, especially if they planned to buy your home as a rental investment property anyway. It gives them an instant reliable tenant and saves you money on storage fees. There are other options to consider as well and I would be happy to discuss them with you.

We are living in a time of historically low mortgage interest rates. As a Seller, when you receive an offer, I would recommend you require the buyer to get a second opinion on their loan. There are loan companies out there that are giving pre-approval letters out without verifying the financial ability of the buyer to actually buy. Prosperity Home Mortgage is a Berkshire Hathaway affiliated company that has instituted reliable pre-qualification procedures that almost guarantee the buyer will be able to close. Most lenders do a quick credit check, ask for income and liability information and print out a pre-approval letter. Then they being the process of gathering supporting information. Even then, they don’t run the file past an underwriter until a contract has been signed and the appraisal conducted. So, at the nth hour, the buyer could be turned down. With Prosperity’s Home Buyer Advantage Program, they underwrite the person (now, doesn’t that make more sense?) and then you just have the appraisal to deal with, but the buyer’s ability to borrow is guaranteed at that point. And with the Second Opinion Guarantee program, Prosperity can normally beat the rates of other companies, thereby saving the buyer money in the long run, so there is no downside them getting a second opinion.

How Much Can You Expect to Sell Your Home For? Using some powerful algorithms. our automated system can give you a pretty good estimate of your current value. However, it can result in a wide range of values because it doesn’t take into account any upgrades you may have made to your home. It only knows who has sold a home similar to yours, near yours, within the last few months. But it gives you a starting point to work from. Then you can call either myself 404-903-7653 or Greta 908-303-0136 to get a personalized market valuation.

What Is Your Home Worth?

Thank you reading my Blog. Since you hung in here with me for this long, please accept a digital copy of my new book, Secrets Every Home Seller Should Know. See you next time.

Get Pre-Approved

Once you have decided to buy a home, you will want to know how much of a home you can afford. Once you know that, well, you can truly begin looking in earnest. All the search engines out there on the internet allow you enter a minimum and maximum price range, filtering out the homes you cannot afford and focusing on those you can. I recommend you download my mobile application to use as one of your search engines. It draws its information directly from the GA Multiple Listing Service (GAMLS), which has the most up-to-date information. But what is better than that, it has a scan feature you can use from your smartphone. As you are driving around looking at neighborhoods or see a particular house you are interested in, you can point your phone at it, hit scan, and it will pull up that home and any others within a 1 mile radius. Cool, huh? To get my mobile application, simply text “scarroll” to 678-400-6100 and follow the directions.

Let’s step back a moment. If you are just curious what’s out there, look at everything. Dare to dream.

But if you are seriously searching, don’t be one of the many buyers who starts looking for a new home without taking the time to find out how much they can afford.  That’s like going to the grocery store without your wallet! How do you figure out how much home you can afford? Well you can use what is called an Affordability Calculator.

Now call me and while you are getting pre-approved, we will start looking for the right home for you.

But I digress. The purpose of this blog is to tell you how to get pre-approved. A pre-approval is generally a written statement from a lender stating the lender’s preliminary determination that a borrower would qualify for a particular loan amount under that lender’s guidelines. The determination and loan amount are based on income and credit information. Most pre-approval letters are good for 60 to 90 days.

Don’t confuse a pre-approval with a pre-qualification. With a pre-qualification, the lender relies on information provided by the buyer to estimate how much the borrower could qualify for. With a pre-approval, the lender verifies the borrower’s information and documentation to determine exactly how much it would be willing to lend to that borrower.

There are many reasons why you should get pre-approved. The most important reason is that you will get an accurate idea of how much home you can afford. This can help to target your home search and ensure you only look at houses that are truly in your price range. A pre-approval letter also helps you prove to real estate agents and sellers that you’re a credible buyer and able to act fast when you find the home you want to buy. Some sellers might even require buyers to submit a pre-approval letter with their offers, though having a pre-approval letter does not guarantee that your offer will be accepted by a seller. A pre-approval letter can make you stand out in a competitive real estate market. If you make an offer on a house without a pre-approval, your offer may not be taken as seriously as an offer from another person with a pre-approval.

So how do you get Pre-Approved?

Gather Essential Information (gather supporting financial documents – don’t guess)

Financial: Income, asset and expense information
If buying: Estimated purchase price and down payment amount
If refinancing: Estimated property value and loan amount

Select a Loan Company. Feel free to email me if you are stumped. I can send you some contacts who I feel comfortable working with and help you identify one matching your particular situation. My email is susan.carroll@bhhsgeorgia.com.

Begin the Pre-Approval Process

Contact a local mortgage consultant by phone or email.
Complete their online application form.
Your mortgage consultant will ask for the financial and property information you’ve gathered. To complete your request, you’ll need to submit your supporting documents before they issue the Pre-Approval letter.

Complete the Loan Application Process

Once you have found the home of your dreams, you will need to complete your application. If they have not already done so, your home mortgage consultant will probably ask you for Pay stubs, your last two years’ W-2s, last two federal returns, two months’ worth of bank statements of all types of accounts, and permission to pull your credit report.

Based on this information, they will provide a Loan Estimate shortly after receipt of your application. The Loan Estimate provides an estimate of the costs of obtaining your loan and the anticipated cash needed to close. After you review the Loan Estimate, you must indicate in writing your intent to proceed with the transaction. Avoid delays by submitting all pages of legible documents as soon as possible, along with any required fees.

There are more steps in the real estate process which must be followed until you actually close on your new home and walk out with the keys. But they are the topic of other blogs.

Here are some of the sources I used to draft this blog in case you want to read more……

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/mortgages/do-you-need-mortgage-preapproval.aspx

https://www.credit.com/loans/mortgage-questions/how-to-get-pre-approved-for-mortgage-home-loan/