Buying a home is a major decision that can be filled with apprehension and concerns. The job of a Real Estate Professionals of Racine agent is to help you find the right home that meets your needs and to make the home buying process efficient, stress-free and successful.

Whether this is your first time or you're an experienced homebuyer, an important first step is to choose a real estate professional and company that you feel comfortable working with and trust. Our goal at Real Estate Professionals of Racine is to gain your confidence through excellent service and commitment to the ultimate success of your home search.



Real Estate Professionals of Racine's Pledge to You...We Will

• Communicate with you in a timely and efficient manner.
  
  
• Plan a home search based on your needs.
  
  
• Inform you of your choice of the various types of representation.
  
  
• Introduce you to properties and neighborhoods that meet your requirements.
  
  
• Help you obtain the financing you may need for a home purchase.

• Assist you in preparing a purchase offer on the property of your choice.
  
  
• Represent you in the transaction with the seller and the seller's real estate representative.
  
  
• Work to protect your interests throughout the transaction.
  
  
• Coordinate the closing of your purchase.

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Buying a Home? Here's How the Process Works

1) Plan ahead -- From the moment you think about buying a home, start planning. Home buying is a time-consuming and demanding process, and it behooves you to utilize your management skills early on.

Start by requesting a copy of your credit report. Carefully examine it for errors, and clean it up before you talk to a lender. Are you currently renting? Check your lease for an early release clause. If you'll be subject to penalties, try to time your closing with the expiration of the lease.

During this planning phase, consider your life over the next five to seven years. Do you plan to start or grow a family? Will an in-law eventually move in with you? Will you be working from home? The number and layout of the rooms you require will depend on your answers.

If you qualify for financing based on a dual income, will you be able to survive on one salary in order to fulfill a long-range plan, such as one parent staying home to raise a child? Once you've answered these questions, establish a plan. Then direct the process with reference to the plan. Don't let the process dictate to you.

2) Understand the home buying process. Homebuyers need to ask questions. Lots of questions. So choose a real estate agent who has experience and is willing to explain the entire home buying process-from viewing homes to negotiating, to financing, to escrow and closing-in detail.

3) Stay within your budget when searching for a home. What can you do to avoid becoming enamored with homes that are out of your price range? Monitor your expenses for a couple of months. Then, based on your findings, develop a budget that truly reflects your lifestyle. Talk to a real estate agent who can provide insight into new home expenses and taxes. Then revise your budget.

It's smart to ask your lender to pre-approve, rather than pre-qualify, you for a mortgage. Pre-qualification only tells how much you can afford. Pre-approval goes a step further. Your lender will thoroughly evaluate your application-including verifying employment information and financial disposition-then clear you for a loan of a determined amount. Having your loan pre-approved gives you a sizeable advantage: Your new status as a cash buyer makes you more attractive to the seller.

Once you learn how much of a home you can afford, stay within your budget. Just because you've been approved for a certain amount, doesn't mean you'll feel comfortable with monthly payments at the high end of the range. Ask yourself if you can live with these payments. Do they fit your established budget? If not, rethink your spending limit. Your new home should give you great pleasure, not hold you hostage.

When you relay your price range to a real estate agent, ask to view properties within that range only. By restricting yourself, you'll avoid disappointment later on.

4) During the home search think with your head, not your heart. Curb appeal can be a powerful force. It's the buyer's kryptonite. By disengaging the mental faculties, it leaves the homebuyer emotionally vulnerable. To counter its effect, you must be objective. Brutally objective.

Look at many homes, including an assortment of types of homes. When you view a property, list the positives and the negatives. Make certain your furniture will comfortably fit into the space. Visit at various times of day to see how much natural light floods the rooms and check for changes in traffic patterns, especially at local rush hours. Have an inspector or engineer pick apart the property. And recruit a friend to view the home and provide you with objective feedback. Ask if he or she can picture your family living there and discuss the whys and why nots. Jot down the points for later review.

Also, think about how long you plan to own the house. Would it be difficult to resell? List the negatives. Could you eliminate or reduce them?

5) Investigate the area in which you are thinking of buying. Don't stop your inspection at the property line. Examine the surrounding area. Is it safe, well maintained and moderately quiet? Is it convenient to work, schools and shops? Ask about zoning and that lovely forest of vacant land across the street. Could the highway nearby be widened in a couple of years? How far is the train? Within ear shot? If you're not familiar with the area, ask friends and colleagues about it. Do your research.

6) Understand the financing. Here's where it helps to be a quick study. Homebuyers have to contend with an assortment of mortgage types and the associated jargon. Your real estate agent can be a great resource.

Get every detail in writing, in particular, the lock-in rate, points and fees. And request a copy for your file. You should also request an estimate of your closing costs, which generally run between 3% and 6% of your loan. Inquire about prepayment penalties. Have the lender attach an addendum to your contract that specifies that no penalties will be imposed for prepaying the loan. This step could save you a good deal of money.

Before you get to the table, read all the documents related to the purchase of the property, and have a professional review them. You're signing a binding, legal document. Make certain you understand the conditions of the loan.

Most of all, remember to use your Real Estate Professionals of Racine agent as a resource. Ask him or her to explain anything you aren't clear on. Your agent is there to educate & guide you, and protect your interests.

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Let's say you've decided to remodel. Although you may be somewhat handy, you know you're better off hiring an expert, someone who knows the ins and outs, who's familiar with regulations and red tape. After all, why take a risk and go it alone when this little venture may drain your checkbook of a few thousand dollars?

Now consider a home sale transaction. In this case, a buyer or seller may have many reasons for involving a professional. Given the sizeable monetary outlay-possibly the single largest financial transaction in a person's lifetime-it seems reasonable, even smart, to call in a specialist. Not surprisingly, most Americans do. According to the National Association of REALTORS¨ (2000 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers), close to 4 out of 5 existing homes in the U.S. have been entrusted to real estate professionals.

What can real estate professionals do for you? Sales associates have evolved from being singularly focused on the purchase or sale of a property to being multifaceted and hands-on, where they typically provide countless services to ensure clients a painless transaction. For example, a sales associate may introduce buyers to new neighbors and assist with registering children at school. A relocation specialist may act as a single point of contact to coordinate all aspects of the move, provide a relocation kit as well as personalized relocation counseling, arrange and lead an area orientation tour, and more, depending on client need.

Sales associates rely on specialized knowledge and experience to move easily in and out of these various roles during a single transaction:

• Marketing Manager - To position a home to sell quickly and at a profit, a comprehensive marketing strategy needs to be developed. Successful strategies generally include sharing information through the local multiple listing service, promoting the home to other sales associates, placing ads, featuring the home on the broker's website, developing fact sheets, installing a yard sign, and planning and conducting open houses. A sales associate can handle calls, schedule appointments and show the home for you.
  
  
• Transaction Coordinator - As a single point of contact, a sales associate can manage the entire transaction including coordinating inspections, keeping in touch with the other agent, managing the documentation for the loan process or following up on the progress of the buyer's loan, monitoring deadlines associated with contingencies, providing applicable paperwork, estimating closing costs, and helping prepare for a smooth and uneventful closing.
  
  
• Community Consultant - A sales associate can be a great resource, especially to homebuyers relocating from other communities. He or she knows the local area including home values, taxes, utility costs, and school data, and may even be knowledgeable about resources pertaining to your special interests or needs. For instance, should you require help relocating an aging parent with you, your sales associate may be able to direct you to local services or organizations for the elderly.
  
  
• Property Specialist - A sales associate can assist buyers with identifying houses that meet their needs and provide objective information about each property. For sellers, a sales associate can determine a realistic selling price based on comparable sales, local market conditions and motivation to sell in addition to advising sellers on how to prepare the property to be shown.
  
  
• Skilled Negotiator - Buyers and sellers benefit from working with a strong advocate during the negotiating process. A sales associate can help you objectively evaluate an offer then work to negotiate a favorable contract. During the process, he or she will review the contract and obligations before you sign, explain how contingencies and release clauses work, and so on.
  
  
• Trusted Advisor - A sales associate can familiarize you with the processes involved in buying or selling a home, alert you to potential risks, help you determine how much house you can afford, explain alternative financing strategies, as well as provide tremendous moral support.

Get Full Value with a Full Time Real Estate Professional

It probably doesn't bother you that your waiter works part-time and is in school full time. Part-time store clerks are perfectly acceptable. On the other hand, you would probably think twice about a part-time surgeon or a part-time nuclear engineer. After all, isn't keeping up with and refining one's skills in a demanding field a full-time pursuit in itself? Why then should you settle for a part-time real estate professional?

Your home is probably your largest and most treasured asset. Buying and selling homes involves complicated transactions, careful marketing, skillful negotiating and a full-time professional who has the time to network effectively on your behalf.

Among the many changes in recent years that demand significant time from a real estate professional are the innovations made possible by the Internet. A savvy real estate professional today knows how-to find and market homes online and on the Internet using a variety of techniques. Not all of these are obvious to the average Internet user and some, such as area multiple listing service systems, remain exclusively available to real estate professionals. New websites are born everyday and old ones go away. Keeping up with these changes could keep an entire team of professionals busy, let alone a part-time real estate sales professional.

Changes in real estate marketing require a skillful professional as well. The advances in desktop publishing and four-color printing technology mean a wider variety of low cost and highly targeted print advertising vehicles are available to the real estate professional seeking to attract buyers and sellers on your behalf. When you list your home with a real estate professional, you want to know that they have the time to access the latest in direct marketing technology on your behalf. Not that your real estate professional creates the ads or sends all the letters that promote your property, but a cost-effective marketing campaign requires a knowledgeable decision-maker to choose the best tools from among the myriad of marketing vehicles and technologies available today.

One of the key functions of a real estate professional is to bring buyers and sellers together. While a local multiple listing service provides a real estate professional with a guide to properties currently on the market, the raw data is only the beginning of the process of putting buyers and sellers together. A real estate professional must spend a good deal of time becoming knowledgeable on the communities and neighborhoods served, developing resources to answer questions about area schools, taxes, recreational amenities and other issues. In addition, your real estate professional should spend countless hours on home tours becoming intimately familiar with the details of available properties. Peer-to-peer networking among real estate professionals is a key source of the buyers and sellers that are matched together and a key to knowing about properties before they even go on the market. To the extent part time real estate professionals have less time to dedicate to all of these tasks, they may be less well prepared to serve your needs.

Buyers seeking highly attractive properties can lose out on a real estate opportunity in a matter of hours if their property search is handled haphazardly. Sellers hoping to attract a buyer would be disappointed to know that a potential buyer saw another home before theirs simply because their real estate professional was unable to show the home at a convenient time.

One of the most critical roles played by your real estate professional is in the negotiation phase. Negotiations over the terms of a home purchase contract can be extremely sensitive. A real estate professional needs to be available to respond quickly and turnaround offers and counteroffers at any time.

No doubt, there are many capable real estate professionals who for a variety of reasons are only available on a part-time basis. Nevertheless, if having a full-time agent is important to you, ask your real estate professional whether or not they are full-time professionals and what hours they are available. With so much at stake, the answer to the question: 'full-time or part-time?" could definitely make a difference in the choice of the right real estate professional for your needs. A full-time real estate professional stands ready to deliver full value in response to your home buying and selling needs.

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A great home in pristine condition may get scooped up hours after being listed. So when competition is fierce, you need to make your offer stand out from your competitors' offers. To increase the likelihood that a seller accepts your offer, consider adopting one or more of these strategies:

Price. Obviously, price tends to be the primary consideration for sellers. In a hot market, when buyers outnumber inventory, offers often come in at full price or above. When you're competing for a home, to get an edge, think about adding a clause stating that you will beat the highest offer by "x" dollars up to "x" amount. Cash offers can be more attractive to sellers as well. Although sellers will receive their money at closing whether buyers pay with cash or take out a loan, cash offers don't require lender approval. And loan approval is never a certainty-it may delay closing.

Financing. It's not enough to be pre-qualified. Pre-qualification only tells how much you can afford. Pre-approval goes a step further. Your lender will thoroughly evaluate your application-including verifying employment information and financial disposition-then clear you for a loan of a determined amount. Having your loan pre-approved gives you a sizeable advantage by putting you on equal footing with cash buyers.

Good Faith Deposit. Buyers offering a larger-than-customary amount of "earnest money," a deposit that accompanies an offer, may get a seller's attention. By committing more money up front, buyers demonstrate greater sincerity and motivation to close the transaction. Your real estate professional can guide you as to the appropriate sum for your specific transaction.

Contingencies. Consider minimizing contingencies, those clauses that allow buyers to back out of a contract if certain conditions are not met. For example, it's common for buyers to make the purchase contingent upon their securing satisfactory financing. Obviously, offers with the fewest conditions tend to be more attractive to sellers.

From a contingency standpoint, first-time buyers are often better prospects for a seller's home than move-up buyers. Here's why: Very often, buyers' offers are contingent upon the sale of their present home. Even if a move-up buyer has an offer in hand, that buyer's offer may be contingent on another contingency, and so on down the line. If one transaction derails, they all might.

Relationship. Help the seller get to know and identify with you by looking for ways to connect. For instance, it may be through a shared appreciation of a certain style of architecture. Let's say that you're fortunate enough to find yourself competing for an original Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home. After hearing about your visit to Taliesin West, Wright's desert home, and your collection of Wright-inspired furniture, the seller might be persuaded that you should be the next custodian of this national treasure. Of course, the connection could be something more conventional such as a shared love of gardening. You'll want to persuade the seller that his prize roses will be well tended.

Naturally, sellers would like to receive top dollar for their home, but remember, they also want an easy, trouble-free transaction. Thus, as a rule, the fewer the contingencies and the greater the commitment, the more attractive your offer may look.

To obtain the most professional representation available, contact an agent at Real Estate Professionals of Racine today.

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Perhaps in recent years, you've had financial difficulties that caused you to make a few late payments to creditors or even possibly not pay some bills at all. You may have even had to file for bankruptcy. Now your difficulties are over and you want to buy a home. Will it be possible to get a home loan with a blemished credit history? Although it may be a little harder than if you had A+ credit, the answer is yes.

One of the first things you want to do is order a credit report. There are three main credit reporting agencies: Equifax (800-685-1111), Experian (888-397-3742), and Trans Union (800-888-4213). [Because not all creditors report information to the same agencies, you may want to request a report from all three.] Once you have the report in hand, study it to make sure that the information is accurate. If there are discrepancies, make sure you follow the steps provided by the credit reporting agency to dispute the information and get it changed. In addition, you may want to add a consumer statement on your credit report to explain any late or non-payment to creditors.

Depending on how damaged your credit is, you may want to put off buying a home for another year. Use that time to repair your credit by paying off creditors and create a history of paying your bills on time and consistently.

When you are ready to apply for a loan, realize that your previous credit history may limit your eligibility for prime loans and low interest rates. When lenders are deciding on whether to issue a potential borrower a loan, they use various criteria in addition to payment history to evaluate the borrower such as employment, income, assets and liabilities. Based on this evaluation, borrowers are offered loans rated on a scale from A to D. The more damaged your credit history, the higher of a risk you are to lenders.

Because of your blemished credit history, you will more than likely have to get a "sub-prime" loan. These types of loans come with higher interest rates and more points. Don't assume that just because a lender offers sub-prime loans, that you will automatically be embraced. Be prepared to explain to the lender why you had credit problems and what you have done to prevent the situation from occurring in the future.

Remember your past financial problems don't have to stop you from experiencing the joys of homeownership.

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• Learn all you can. Before committing your cash, you should have a fundamental understanding of real estate. For example, be aware that, in general, investment properties are not liquid investments. Barring exceptional circumstances, real estate does not sell at a moment's notice. It could take days or months to sell a property, depending on the strength of the market in a particular region.
• Consider cash flow. You'll need to have enough capital on hand to cover any short-term losses due to vacancies between tenants.
• Start small. Look into buying a single family home or a duplex. Leave large apartment buildings and commercial properties to the pros.
• Inquire at the local Chamber of Commerce about companies relocating into or out of the area. Company movement is one indicator of demand for rental and/or office space.
• Find a property that will be in demand. Look for a moderately priced home with three or four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a garage that sits on a quiet street.
• Research the property. The most common way first-time investors lose is by failing to investigate a property thoroughly. Look beyond the front door. Investigate the reputation of the school district, the crime rate, and plans for expanding a nearby highway or developing vacant land. Ask a Prudential Northwest Properties associate about the area, its history, and how fast (or slow) properties are moving.
• Inspect the home you're considering for signs of water damage, such as stains on the ceiling and crinkling or gathering wallpaper; open and close every door and window; and check all electrical sockets by plugging in an appliance. Get an independent home inspection, roof inspection and termite inspection. Unexpected repair costs can eat away resale profit. Because even the best inspection can't always predict problems, try to set aside some of the rental income for unexpected repairs.
  
• Spend time driving the streets of the neighborhood noting the condition of other properties. Are lawns maintained? Are roofs in good shape? Are homes kept up?
• Be ready to make fixes quickly and respond to the renter's needs. If you're not prepared to be a hands-on landlord, consider hiring a property management firm. Remember, investing in a property is much different than living in one, and while emotion and attachment can be prime motivators when it comes to homes, it is return on investment that counts when investing in real estate.
  

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