Sacramento Real Estate Views

Buying a Home in Sacramento

What to Expect – Preparation is Half the Battle

So you’ve gotten your offer accepted, YEAH, and now it’s time to enter escrow, complete your due diligence, get closed and on your way to home ownership or renting out your investment home.

While it may have seemed that getting your offer accepted was the hard part, your escrow will not go as you had planned or hoped it would.  Expect this.  There will be hiccups during the course of your “transaction” that will have you scratching your head and thinking “is this really worth it?”  While that’s a question only you can answer, you’ve got to keep in mind that the home buying environment out there is vastly different that it has been in the past.  It doesn’t matter how many homes you’ve bought and sold, every one of them is different with varying bumps in the road that will need to be navigated.

That is the reason you want to work with an experienced Realtor who has seen a vast majority of these issues come and go.  We bring reason to a very emotional situation.  While it may not be what you want to hear when you’re seriously angry about the situation at hand, it will help keep you focused on the goal and moving ahead instead of moving backward.

A Few Examples

Below are a few things that are common in our market right now and apply to the majority of home buying transactions right now.  Read on, prepare yourself and you’ll get through your purchase with far fewer headaches and your sanity intact.

1. Repairs – Be prepared to take on the expense of any and all repairs to the property.  This may require you to construct your offer differently than you would normally.

2. Lenders – The lending environment has tightened up considerably.  Changes in your financial situation, using credit cards, buying a car or furniture for your new home on credit could disqualify you with the lender.

A recent situation with an associate of mine was interesting.  An unmarried couple got their offer accepted and during the escrow period, they got married.  Her credit was trashed and as a result of getting married, their lender disqualified them as now her credit was “their” credit.  They are now still renting.  True story.

3.  Title Companies – Many of the title companies being used right now are from out of the area and sometime from out of state.  They are not reponsive, generally, and cause escrows to close late.

4.  Sellers – Many sellers are banks especially in the short sale arena.  They can take much longer to respond to buyer requests thus delaying escrows.

5.  Closing – Just plan on, no matter how prepared you are or how smooth things are going, that you’re escrow will close late.  Period.   The percentages of escrows closing late is astronomical right now.  While I’ve had few close on time, the majority have closed late.

I’m in a situation right now with a strong buyer and a very willing seller.  The escrow was supposed to close last Friday but the listing agent didn’t make sure her client got their documents in on time and delayed the close.  This was the perfect transaction delayed by a lack of attention by the listing agent.

There are so many variables in real estate purchases that there is just no way to accurately assess where you are and when you’re there.  The best advice is to be flexible and prepare yourself for delays and speed bumps.  The proper mindset will help you to stay as calm as possible and accomplish your goal with a minimum of stress.

Thanks for visiting!

Related posts:

1. Sacramento Home Buyers – YOU HAVE 37 DAYS TO BE IN CONTRACT!

Tags: buy a home in sacramento

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 9:34 am and is filed under Local Real Estate Info, Market Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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