I talk a lot about the good deals in Las Vegas, but I think it’s fair to say that some of you who read this may not even be familiar with how to purchase a property, for an investment or personal use. If you have only done it once or twice, or if you have never done it, there may be some things you don’t know.
Unless you are paying cash, finding the right home starts with finding a good lender. You need to know how much home you can afford, how much money you will need for down payment, and closing costs, and what your monthly payments will be, before your real estate taxes and insurance. A lender can pre-approve you for a loan and issue an approval letter. This is imperative when you are negotiating on real estate! If more than one comparable offer has been received and none of them are cash offers, the seller will always choose the buyer who has the financing in place. Many sellers will not even look at your offer without a pre-approval letter. (If you need lender recommendations, I have them for you!) Of course, cash is still king!
The next step is determining which neighborhoods you prefer within your budget. Since the first rule of real estate is location, location, location, if the property will be your home, I suggest choosing the best community you can afford even if it means choosing a somewhat smaller or less luxurious home, as long as it will accommodate your lifestyle comfortably. Then when you are ready to sell the home and move on you will be assured of a better pool of buyers. Of course location is important for investment properties as well. You want to be in a neighborhood poised for appreciation, but where the tenants are not going to have the Home Owner’s Association (HOA) after you all of the time. Make sure you look into the real estate taxes and insurance costs when determining affordability, and know that landlords have different types of insurance coverage than homeowners. (If you need a great insurance agent, let me know.)
Once you have identified several neighborhoods to look in, I can customize your search to fit your special needs. I can search by size, number of bedrooms & garages, school zones, lot size, pools, fireplaces, floor plan style, etc. I will preview the homes for you, and only show you the ones I know are the best on the market for price and condition. And don’t worry, you will know the home when you walk into it! It will feel like your space. For investors, the best buys typically have more bedrooms and less square footage.
Next we need to negotiate an offer with the seller, often a bank. The two most crucial points in the contract will be the selling price and the closing date. To find the proper offer price, we will do a market analysis on the neighborhood for you and determine how much other similar homes have been selling for. The seller will not want to spend a lot of time waiting for you, however you must have a reasonable time to inspect the property and evaluate the HOA. Then your lender’s job (if you have one) is to close quickly.
Don’t be afraid to offer the seller an amount that the property is really worth – having said that, if a property is priced right to begin with and you waste time making low offers to save even more, someone else is likely to swoop in and buy it out from under you. Sometimes trying to save a couple of thousand dollars is not worth losing the home of your dreams or a great investment property.
After the offer is accepted it is time to choose a home inspector. I always recommend having one. In fact, if the property is bank owned, I suggest spending a few dollars more and getting an engineer to inspect. Your inspector will go through the home and up in the attics checking all the major systems. They will find defects a normal buyer could not reasonably expect to discover and often the seller doesn’t know about them either. A few hundred dollars invested here can save you thousands. Of course also understand that the inspector’s job is to point out every single defect in the property, so don’t let your inspector scare you away.
The lender will eventually be sending out an appraiser. The appraiser’s job is to make sure you are not paying more than fair market value for the property.
Just before you have ‘closed’ on the purchase, contact the utilities to get those into your name including water, sewer and trash. If you will be hiring contractors to do work, you will want to schedule them now, as the good ones are usually busy.
The day of the closing you will want to do a final walk through of the home. (I can do that for you if you are not in Las Vegas) You will check to make sure everything in the home is still in good working condition and anything that the seller was supposed to fix has been. Then we will go to the escrow office to sign the final loan documents and turn in a cashier’s check for the balance of the down payment and closing costs. Of course if you aren’t in Las Vegas, this will be done by overnight courier and wire transfers.
The day your home is recorded at the county recorder’s office is the day you get your keys. You can now either begin to work on it, move in or get it rented!
Are you ready to buy real estate in Las Vegas? Visit www.MyFastEasySale.com, click the “Wholesale Buyers” link, and fill out the form. Let’s get you going.