Home Inspection – JD PDX Real Estate | Your Portland Realtor

11 Of The Best Home Buying Tips

Jamohl DeWald — Mon, 27 Aug 2018 13:32:43 +0000

11 Tips For Buying A Home

Buying a house whether it’s your first or fifth — can be a bumpy process. Between the financing, the availability (or scarcity) of homes on the market in your price range that meet your needs, the offer process, the appraisal and the inspection, there’s a lot that can go wrong between deciding that you are in the market for a new home and turning the keys for the first time in your new front door.

But there’s a lot that buyers can do to make the process smoother. Here are eleven tips.

Your finances

1. Check your own credit

Your credit will play a huge part in what types of loans you may qualify for.

You may or may not be able to change your income at the moment or be able to save a 20% down payment on a home. But you can always work on improving your credit score! Get copy of your credit report and verify that it is accurate. Get all errors and inaccuracies corrected. Your lender can tell you which payments to prioritize and what to do to help improve your credit score.

2. Research Home sale prices in your area

It’s always a good idea to research the neighborhoods you are thinking about buying a home in. Check on active homes, pending and sold sales. What are the average days on the market and average sold price? At this point it’s a good idea to speak to a real estate expert. As a home buyer an agents services are FREE to you! A real estate agent can help guide and advise you on the details of a specific neighborhood. An agent can also help with the pre-approval process, along with other questions about the costs of homeownership like maintenance/repair costs.

3. The down payment

Most first time home buyers can’t afford to put 20% down payment on a home. In this case, you will end up having to pay PMI (private mortgage insurance) on your home loan.

There are a number of down payment programs that will help you secure some or all of your down payment. Start with downpaymentresource.com to see what’s available in your area for your demographic. Check here Portland Metro Area Down Payment Options

4. The costs of owning/buying a home

Along with your PMI insurance, you will have things like property taxes & homeowners insurance. Depending on where you buy you may also have to carry flood insurance. Don’t forget about closing costs, new furniture needed to decorate your home, lawn mower and gardening tools you may not have ever needed before along with the costs of maintaining your home. Your real estate agent should be able to help advise what to expect as far as home maintenance.

5. What can you afford?

The experts say to not to spend more than 1/3 of your monthly income on your mortgage payment (including insurance, taxes and other costs).

A mortgage broker can help you with any questions you may have. The pre approval process takes some work on your part but it’s pretty painless really. You can expect to have to provide taxes for the last 2 years, bank statements, credit report, check stubs etc. in order to complete your pre approval. In a seller’s market which most of the US is in you will definitely need your pre approval in hand BEFORE you start shopping for a home.

The home search

6. Wants VS needs?

After you have gone through the pre-approval process, you can now start to make your wants & needs list in a home. If you have a dog, then a condo in the city that doesn’t allow pets probably isn’t a great option for you. But, a single family home with a fenced backyard would be a great fit for you! Again, this is an area where an experienced local real estate agent can help you find your dream home.

Keep in mind your wants and needs might change over time. Expect to be in your home for at least a couple of years. The average time is 7 years. You may not have kids now, but if you’re planning on having children, then it’s a good idea to consider school districts as well.

7. What are your dealbreakers

Dealbreakers are important. There is a difference between dislikes (paint color) and dealbreakers (no yard). Dislikes can more than likely be changed or dealt with, dealbreakers can’t.

An experienced real estate agent can help guide you with these decisions. Your realtor can also help you take care of any of those dislikes before you move into your new home.

8. Home search

One tool that real estate agents have that the general public doesn’t, is access to the local multiple listing service (MLS). Once you understand your must-haves and your dealbreakers, your real estate agent can set up a personalized alert anytime a home that meets your exact criteria is listed on the market. In a hot sellers market this is still the BEST tool to get new home alerts instantly and far more accurate than Zillow or Redfin.

The offer & closing

9. Think competitive but reasonable

No buyer likes a bidding war, but you’ll want to make an offer that the seller will consider competitive. At the same time, you don’t want to pay more when the seller would possibly accept less. An experienced real estate agent can help you determine an offer that’s a good deal for you and priced high enough to capture the seller’s attention as well.

There are concessions you can make to sweeten the deal. Such as, selecting a close date that best suits the seller, offering the seller free rent back if they need extra time to relocate or offering to split the price of any necessary repairs discovered in the inspection. Your real estate agent can walk you through your options.

10. Inspections

The home inspection is a very important step in the home buying process. Make sure you and your agent are present for the inspection and listen carefully to any concerns that they may have about the property. Ask questions about common problems that the inspector sees in the home. After the inspection, you will have a good idea of what you will ask the seller to repair and what you’re okay taking on yourself.

11. Beyond closing

It’s a good idea to keep tabs on the market in at least a casual way so that when the time comes to renew your homeowners’ insurance policy, you have a clear idea of whether you’re underinsured or not. Obviously, the better you maintain your home while you live in it, the less chance that you’ll be surprised by something you must fix at the inspection when the time comes to sell it. Check here for a free “Home Maintenance” scheduler.

More helpful home buyer resources

Blockchain real estate selling property is getting easier – This article originally posted at Coincentral.com

Buying Etiquette 101 | Rules to Follow When Buying a Home – Via Michelle Gibson

10 Steps to Buying Your Home | Home Buying Checklist – Via Sharon Paxson

15 Steps to Home | What First Time Home Buyers Need to Know – Via Eileen Anderson

What You Wish You Had Known Before Buying A home – Via Lynn Pineda

14 Steps to Buying a House – A Complete Guide For Home Buyers – Via Kyle Hiscock

First Time Home Buyer Guide | The Home Buying Process Explained – Via Luke Skar

Small Down Payment Doesn’t Mean The Buyer is Not Qualified – Via Bill Gassett

What To Expect From Your Realtor As A First Time Home Buyer

Your realtor can remain a valuable resource for you by providing market statistics and connecting you with local contractors who can fix any issues you encounter in your new era as a homeowner. Looking for an excellent local Portland contractor? Check here

About Jamohl Dewald

My philosophy is simple: clients come first. I pledge to be in constant communication with my clients, keeping them fully informed throughout the entire buying or selling process. If you’re not left with an amazing experience, I haven’t done my job. Success is not measured through achievements or awards but through the satisfaction and repeat/referral business of my clients. My goal is to be your top realtor choice when it comes to buying or selling real estate. Having spent most of my life in Portland, OR., living in Northeast, Southeast, Bethany, Hillsboro, Beaverton, downtown, St. Johns, Clackamas and West Linn, I’m very knowledgeable of the many different neighborhoods our city has to offer

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This Is Why You Need That Home Inspection

Jamohl DeWald — Sat, 05 May 2018 19:56:09 +0000

You should never judge a book by its cover, or a house by what you can see during a showing. Not only are showings about seeing yourself in a space, rather than assessing a home’s structural stability and system functionality, they’re generally too brief to really get to the nitty gritty. No Realtor is going to wait around while you crawl through the attic.

Anyway, that’s what home inspectors are for.

What a Home Inspection Is and Isn’t

One of the biggest misconceptions about home inspections is that the report you get is a run down of a static structure that’s unchangeable. The truth is that a home — or even an empty lot — is a constantly changing ecosystem. In a house, there are lots of parts behind the scenes that are growing and shrinking, shifting and moving, albeit slowly.

A home inspection isn’t a projection of the future health of your house. It’s a right now look at the structure and all the moving parts. A home inspection is a snapshot and it can only reflect what the inspector sees during the time they’re at your future address.

This means that a year from your home inspection the furnace may go out, or the roof may succumb to high winds. Your house may change in ways no one can predict now. But, that doesn’t mean that a home inspection has no value.

Three Big Reasons to Have a Home Inspection

Home professionals know what they’re getting for the price of a home inspection, but many home buyers balk at the idea of spending even more money trying to buy a house. Granted, home inspections aren’t cheap, but they provide a lot of value for the money. There are plenty of reasons to hire a home inspector, but these three biggies are worth pondering if you’re unsure about pulling that trigger.

1. Home inspectors can sniff out problems you may have missed when viewing the home.

No one wants to buy a money pit, but people do all the time because they’re either overestimating their abilities or they’ve failed to get a home inspection. When your home inspector goes through your home, they’ll not just walk around in the living room. They crawl through the crawl space, they get up into the attic, they really give it a good look. Home inspections take hours to complete, but when they’re done you’ll be given a report that provides you more information than you could ever imagine. The types of problems found will help you decide if you can really deal with the house in the longer term or if you can afford the house at all.

2. They’ll prepare you for upcoming repairs.

Although your home inspection is a snapshot of your home at a particular moment in time, and not meant to predict the future, there are many parts of the ecosystem that predictably show signs of wear. When your home inspector sees that your shingles are starting to lose their asphalt coating, for example, they’re going to make a note of that in the report. If the furnace is beyond its useful life, even though it still works, you can brace yourself for replacing it. Knowing that there are problems in your future can give you more time to prepare for fixing them, even if that means changing loan types to a mortgage with a rehabilitation loan component, like an FHA 203(K).

3. Don’t forget, an inspection report is also a bargaining chip.

Most real estate contracts allow you an inspection period, during which you can get your experts out and have them look around the property. You also have the right to ask for repairs based on what they find, provided these were not readily apparent issues. (If the carpet’s worn in the hallway, you can’t ask for that during the inspection period because you could see it. You should request those kinds of repairs with your initial offer.)

Those less visible defects are everything. Say, for example, that your home inspector found that the plumbing is leaking under the house. When that report comes in, you can request that the seller fix this issue, because it’s obviously a major problem you couldn’t have known about. If they refuse, you can come back and ask to lower the sales price (with most loan programs). Some lenders will require that something as important as the piping is in working order before closing, so make sure you and your Realtor know what your loan requires before breaking out the home inspection bargaining chip.

After closing, a lot of buyers lose or toss their home inspections. This is kind of a mistake. You can use that home inspection as a punch list of items to update, repair or replace, and check them off as you go. Later, when you go to sell that house, you can show your potential buyers that you literally fixed everything on the home inspection. That’s a confidence builder, for sure.

You Need a Home Inspection — and an Inspector!

Your Realtor knows lots of home inspectors, so when it comes time to look that house over from top to bottom, connect with them in the HomeKeepr community. You’ll be able to view your agent’s recommendations for home inspectors in the area, along with other home experts you may need to help with repairs further down the road.

Sign Up Free

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Important Advice On 5 Things You Must Do Before A Home Inspection

Jamohl DeWald — Mon, 22 Jan 2018 20:26:17 +0000

Home Inspection

Seal the deal with these must-dos for home inspection. It’s as easy as 1-2-3…4-5! Keep in mind that to do a thorough inspection, the inspector must be able to access the attic, crawlspaces, and garage.

Download My App & start your home search TODAY!

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