Home buying process

Getting Ready to Buy a Home?

There are many steps to the home buying process and it can be overwhelming. Here’s why identifying the right REALTOR® to help you on your home buying journey is so important.

First Steps:

• It starts with a Desire! Owning a home is a big part of the American dream, and most people would say that the independence, autonomy, and sense of accomplishment that owning a home brings is an essential part of the American way of life.
• Do I qualify? The widespread myth that perfect credit and large down payments are necessary to buy a home are holding many potential home buyers on the sidelines. Contacting a lender helps you best understand if you are able to buy now!
• Select the neighborhoods you desire to live in and review the listing information on properties that interest you.
• Select and interview a Buyer’s Agent from a local, trusted real estate firm. Local real estate professionals are often members of community organizations and are usually well versed in their area’s history. Their ties to the community make them a great resource whether you plan to relocate to a new area or across town.

 

Pre-approval Loan Programs:

Buyers requiring financing to facilitate the purchase of their home are encouraged to apply for a loan. Once you obtain a Pre-approval letter from your lender, you can then set out to find the home of your dreams.

Here’s why…

• Home buyers know whether or not they qualify.
• Once qualified, home buyers look at the right priced homes.
• Home buyers save money dealing with a comfortable seller.
• A pre-qualified buyer is a stronger bidder. You close quicker!

As your Buyer’s Agent, Garden Heights Realty will:

• Assist you in finding the home that meets your needs. We commit the time and resources needed to find exactly what you want, and will continue to search for the right home – at the right price, in the neighborhood you want to call home.
• Show you properties when you are available because we work as a team to make your schedule our schedule. We will immediately inform you of a NEW property when it hits the market that meets your criteria. 

Benefits of a Buyer’s Agent

OLD CAR: A Realtor's Fiduciary Responsibilities

In accordance with the National Association of Realtors®, a Real Estate Agent who becomes an Agent of a Seller or Buyer, either intentionally through the execution of a written agreement, or unintentionally by a course of conduct, will be deemed to be a fiduciary.  Fiduciary duties are the highest duties known to the law.  Classic examples of fiduciaries are trustees, executors, and guardians.  As a fiduciary, a Real Estate Agent will be held under the law to owe certain specific duties to his principal, in addition to any duties or obligations set forth in a listing agreement or other contract of employment. These specific fiduciary duties include:

 

Obedience. The REALTOR® is obligated to promptly and efficiently follow your lawful instructions, as long as they are lawful and ethical.  For example, if you're selling your home and tell him/her that you'd like them to be present every time a Buyer's Agent shows the house, he/she must follow your instructions. They might point out the reasons why such instructions might be counter-productive (for example, what if your agent has a conflict and can't be there when the potential buyer wants to see the house?), but if you insist, the standard of Obedience means they must do what you tell them to do.  However, this duty plainly does not include an obligation to obey any unlawful instructions; for example, an instruction to misrepresent the condition of the property. Compliance with instructions the agent knows to be unlawful could constitute a breach of an agent’s duty of loyalty.

 

Loyalty: A duty of loyalty is one of the most fundamental fiduciary duties owed by an agent to his principal. This duty obligates a real estate broker to act at all times solely in the best interests of his principal to the exclusion of all other interests, including the broker’s own self-interest. A corollary of this duty of loyalty is a duty to avoid steadfastly any conflicts of interest that might compromise or dilute the broker’s undivided loyalty to his principal’s interests. Thus, a real estate broker’s duty of loyalty prohibits him from accepting employment from any person whose interests compete with, or are adverse to, his principal’s interests. A classic example of breach of this duty of loyalty by a real estate broker is a broker who purchases property listed with his firm and then immediately resells it at a profit. Such conduct ordinarily is perfectly appropriate and lawful by persons acting “at arm’s length.” But a fiduciary will be deemed to have “stolen” a profit opportunity rightfully belonging to his principal and thus to have breached his duty of loyalty.

 

Disclosure: An agent is obligated to disclose to his principal all relevant and material information that the agent knows and that pertains to the scope of the agency. The duty of disclosure obligates a real estate broker representing a seller to reveal to the seller:

 

• All offers to purchase the seller’s property.
• The identity of all potential purchasers.
• Any facts affecting the value of the property.
• Information concerning the ability or willingness of the buyer to complete the sale or to offer a higher price.
• The broker’s relationship to, or interest in, a prospective buyer.
• A buyer’s intention to subdivide or resell the property for a profit.
• Any other information that might affect the seller’s ability to obtain the highest price and best terms in the sale of his property.