| | Term; Tip; Definition | A real estate agent is a state licensed professional employed to help you find the right house for your budget and needs. A strict definition is below, our definition is hSara, whom you can see here - http://www.ebby.com/agent/SarahZafarano. | http://www.investorwords.com/4058/real_estate_agent.html | 1 |
| | Tip | You really need to understand your budget, as it really is, not as it looks on a spreadsheet :). Don't go above your maximum when you make an offer. Tell your Agent what your maximum is so that she/he can help factor this in when picking homes to show you. | Family | 2 |
| | Tip | Make a list of things that you need in a home. Make another list of things that you would like to have in a home. Include number of rooms, bathrooms, garage size, air conditioning heating requirements, and so forth. Color is important! Even if the floor plan, appliances and everything else is exactly what you want, but the home has cranberry colored carpets in every room, this would be a red flag as an improvement that would need to be done either before move in or immediately after move in, so that cost would need to be factored in. | Wife - Chelle | 3 |
| | Tip | You may have a couple of houses at the end of your window shopping that you really love. Put pen to paper and directly compare each and every feature on a room-by-room, detail-by-detail basis. We hit this exact situation and the writing and comparing of features helped us finalize the decision on which house we would pursue. | Experience | 4 |
| | Term; Tip | Typically when you are buying a new home, you are expected to put down "earnest money". Earnest money is a show of good faith on the part of the buyer that he means to follow through with the purchase of the house. It is generally a non-refundable advance on the build, but good builders will make provisions to refund the money of something catastraphic happens between the the time of the deposit of the earnest money and closing day. Assumng everything goes to plan, the builder could refund the money after close, but we will be applying ours to our down payment! | Mother in Law - Thanks Vicki! | 5 |
| | Tip; Definition | At the simplest level, a mortgage company is a lender that will finance your house. National mortgage companies with good histories are a good choice for many. Others, like us, opt in to the builder's mortgage company to take advantage of perks. | http://www.mortgage101.com/Articles/Applying.asp?p=mtg101&ArticleID=1034 | 6 |
| | Tip | You want to leave some bargaining room! In our case, we offered $230K for a $252K house and the offer was accepted! | Jason Dool, Miyuki Ryan | 7 |
| | Term; Tip | Once you have put down your "earnest money", you need to file a bit of paper work with your mortgage company. We had to complete about 25 pages or so of paperwork so that the mortgage company could process our credit report, verify our income sources and bank accounts. We also used this to ask questions about odd charges in the estimate like escrow, homeowners dues, anod other charges that we didn't understand. | Mortgage Company; http://www.lendingtree.com/smartborrower/Mortgages/The-Good-Faith-Estimate.aspx | 8 |
| | Term; Tip; Definition | Your credit information, good and bad, is kept buy several major companies. You can obtain a copy of this record, or credit report, for a fee or in some cases, for free. Good credit typically opens up your financing offerings, whereas bad credit can cost you higher interest rates or even keep you from buying a home. | http://www.investorwords.com/5490/credit_report.html | 9 |
| | Term; Definition | There are two things that are referred to as "points". The first is given by some lenders when you purchase "discount points" up front. One discount point is equal to one percent of the principal, i.e., two points on a $250,000 mortgage, for example, will cost $5,000, and might lower your rate by 0.25 percent. Discount points can vary wildly by lender, so if you choose this route, you should get quotes from multiple lenders. Lenders may also charge origination points, which are an administrative fee for processing your application and do not affect the interest rate. Make sure you understand which type of "points" that you are paying for up front. | Mortgage company | 10 |
| | Tip | | Mike McIntyre, Don Cowan | 11 |
| | Term; Tip; Definition | There are different type of foundations that are available for homes, whether new or used. Our home uses the technically superior "post-tension" slab due to the makeup of our soil here in North Texas. Here, due to clay marl that is dominant beneath the soil, slabs are prone to shift and then crack. The post-tension build method uses cables at high tension to give the slab more resistance to cracking due to tensile forces.
Other foundation types include:
-- Crawl space - This foundation gets its name due to the fact that it's built above the ground, allowing for just enough room to crawl underneath | http://www.post-tensioning.org/info_whatispt.asp; http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/hm_homeexterior/article/0,2085,DIY_16800_3034012,00.html | 12 |
| | Definition | This is the type of foundation our home will have. It is the latest foundation technology and its goal is to prevent shifting/cracking in the future. | http://www.hgtvpro.com/hpro/bp_foundation/article/0,2617,HPRO_20146_3745450,00.html | 13 |
| | Term; Tip | A down payment is not mandatory these days; many lenders offer zero interest loans if you have immaculate credit. Industry standard is 20% and if you put this much down, you can typically save yourself some paperwork. We put down a little over 30% because we want to keep our payments as low as we can! | Agent | 14 |
| | Term; Tip; Definition | Closing is referred to in various ways; closing costs, closing day and so forth. Closing is a process that starts well before closing day, and it actually refers to the offer for the home, the good faith estimate, deposit and paperwork that must be completed prior to taking ACTUAL ownership of the home. A great description and video are cited below. | http://www.lendingtree.com/smartborrower/Ask-an-Expert---Home-loans/The-closing-process.aspx | 15 |
| | Tip | One of my friends from work told me that I should get some Boric Acid and spray all the wood in the frame from the foundation to a height of about four feet.
I went to buy some Friday so that I could spray Saturday the 8th, but I noted (and you can see in the pics from the 8th) that the wood has a greenish tint.
Is it possible that my builder already knew this secret and took care of the spraying for me? | Scott Fawley - Friend from work | 16 |
| | Tip | In the area where we are building, sewage costs more than water! In our case, it makes sense to get a second water meter - this second meter is dedicated to the sprinkler system and will have no sewage charges associated with it. The cost for the meter and builder overhead is $725; we estimate that we will save that in sewage in one year! So for us, thiis meter makes a ton of sense. | Co-workers/Friends - Mike McIntyre, Steve Sheppard, Ben Mayes | 17 |
| | Term; Tip | Make sure that your builder is using GFCI outlets, especially in wet areas. For more information, check this link out:
| Friend - Mike Watson | 17 |
| | Tip | In each room, all outlets should be at the same height where possible. Aesthetically this looks great, but in rooms where you will have built in cabinets or desks, this is a must unless you want to start drilling holes into those cabinets or desks when you move in! | Building Architect | 19 |