As a full time realtor, here's my two cents (and some comments)...
Don't take anything your realtor says as gospel. 99% of the ones I've met were lying filth.
...and 99% of the buyers I work with are wishy-washy, uncommitted, and generally need their heads examined for trying to waste my time looking at houses they A) can't afford, or B) don't intend to buy anyway, they just want to "see it for fun" on MY time and gas.
There is a term in the industry - "Buyers are liars". I've lost count of how many times buyers will have me haul them all over creation looking for a specific kind of house with specific things in specific areas, only to buy something totally opposite of what they thought they "had to have."
Be agressive with your realtor.
I can see why you've had trouble with realtors. "Getting aggressive" with a realtor is a good way to have them tell you to hit the road. And I have, literally. One client was so "aggressive" that I left him a the corner store and called the jerk a cab.
You want to establish a working, mutually beneficial relationship, not an adversarial one. You can be specific and discerning without being an a$$.
If you have kids, check for child molestors in the area. We had realtors try to gloss over this several times.
Why are you asking the realtor about a non-real estate issue? The realtor is there to help you buy a house, not to raise your children. That's YOUR job. If you have a concern about sex offenders, check out your state's sex offender database or contact the local police department for crime reports specific to that area.
Do your own checking online, and compare it to what your realtor is showing you. Realtor.com is a good site. I found out you can usually find anything the realtor can on your own using the web.
Yep, you can. And you can get even MORE information if you'll meet with the realtor at their office where you can go through the database TOGETHER and determine which homes best meet your criteria.
If you want advice on buying a house, get it from someone who does it for a living and not from someone who bought one house thirty years ago. Uncle Joe or Brother Bob might be a nice guy, but he knows squat about the housing and mortgage market
Now that I got that off my chest...
Pick a mortgage company to work with, get pre-qualified, and they will give you all of the necessary info on programs available to you. The programs vary widely by location.
AMEN! Your money situation should be priority one! Get that lined out first.
A mortgage is simple. Regardless of what the jickylender.com commercials say, lenders will want to know three things. 1) How much do you make, 2) How much do you owe, and 3) What is your credit status. The first condition will be verified with tax returns and paycheck stubbs, the second and third will be verified with your credit report. Sure, there are lenders who will do a loan without pulling credit scores, but be prepared for a 15-20% down payment and interest rates 3-5% higher than a conventional loan.
Check out the various web sites. .... You can apply on-line and get pre-qualified.
Dear Lord, NO!!!!
A prequalification from an internet lender isn't worth the paper it's printed on. In short, they are crap. They say you are "pre-qualified" which is totally different from "pre-approved". I can qualifiy you on a calculator, getting a full blown pre-approval means you have completed the loan process and have been completely and fully approved for the loan with no conditions or contingencies remaining to be verified.
l can't caution you enough against internet lenders. Since the inception of the jickylender.com boom, I haven't had a single transactions (as in "None") involving an internet lender that closed on time or was anywhere remotely close to being like the Good Faith Estimate showed. And that's if they even closed at all. Local lenders have always been a better, and cheaper, source of a mortgage. As an example, the average local mortgage here costs around $650 with no origination fee and no paydown. The same loan via an internet lender will cost roughly three times that. If you can't find a good local lender, go with a nationally known name like Countrywide, Bank of America, or Wells Fargo. At the very least you will have some corporate backing if something happens to go wrong.
DO NOT get one of these interest-only loans, nor a floating-rate loan. Those are just fool's paradise deals.
Ditto!! Ditto!! Ditto!!
Go for an old-fashioned 3-5% down conventional loan. It's straightforward and you know exactly what you're getting from the start.
Be modest and moderate in your choices.
Couldn't have said it better myself! There is a distinction between buying as much house as you can get approved for, and buying a house you can actually afford. Having a big, fancy house is worthless if you are in debt to your eyeballs and don't have the cash to do anything but sit at home.
If you're married, try to buy the house based on one income's ability to make payments. That way, if one of you loses your job, you won't be completely screwed.
+1, and then some!!
In terms of what to do...
First, get your financial situation in order. Don't circumvent this. Do this first, before even setting foot in a house. With this step out of the way you can look at houses you KNOW you can afford, and you can negotiate from a strengthened position bacause your pre-approved offer is, for all intents and purposes, the same as cash. Lenders will give you a Good Faith Estimate based on your loan amount. If you have questions about the accuracy, go to a title company and have them pull a file on a transaction similar to yours so you can see the closing statement, or get your realtor to pull one from their files. Which brings us to....
...Find a good realtor! The hallmark of a good realtor is someone who will tell you what you NEED to hear and not just what you WANT to hear. Also, look for someone fairly low-key. Slick, fast-talking agents are little more than fancy used-car salesmen (remember, I'm an agent and I have to deal with dirtballs like this. I know of what I speak). Hint, an agent that pulls up in a fancy brand-new Hummer or Mercedes is probably NOT the person you want to use. Find someone who drives a nice, clean 3 or 4 year old car (model not important) and dresses professionally, but not overtly fancy. Finally, trust your gut. If you don't feel personally comfortable with the agent after just a few minutes, find someone else.
Also, be truthful with your realtor. If you don't like a house, say so. It's not their personal home, so you're not going to insult them by saying you don't like it. On the contrary, it helps the agent make better use of your time by weeding out houses with features you inherently dislike. Also, be aware that a good realtor will not try to "sell" you on a home. Good realtors know that buyers will purchase a home they like and don't need to be coerced, cajoled, or persuaded to do so.
Once you find a house, look. Then look some more. You know what a water stain looks like. You know what gas smells like. You know what loose, warped, or water damaged wood looks like. So... LOOK! Even good inspectors sometimes miss things. Also, BE THERE when the house is being inspected. That way you can ask about things you notice, and the inspector can give you more in depth information on anything they find.
And don't get hung up on "getting a good deal" if it loses the house you really like. Trying to wrangle an extra $1500 or $2000 out of the deal and losing the house is not worth the $15-18 difference in the monthly payment. That's right. That big number on paper is really a small number in reality.
Above all, be patient and make sure you maintain good communication. Pain-in-the-butt things WILL pop up. Count on it. It makes it a lot easier to overcome if everyone is on the same page. Keep in touch with your agent and mortgage broker regularly, but don't be a pain in the butt. Calling every day only makes the realtor and mortgage broker more likely to ignore your call. And be realistic. Life isn't perfect, which means no house, no realtor, and no mortgage lender is perfect. Some things simply can't be done exactly like you want them, but there is usually a mutually beneficial middle ground. Use a little common sense and maintain your objectivity.
Hope this helps!
Brad
