Video Summary
What advice would you give a first-time homebuyer? Well, it’s certainly the largest investment you’ll probably be making in this time in your life, so I would suggest that you probably talk to an attorney who handles any number of real estate transactions and can give you some guidance as far as the process of buying a home and what all you need to do.
Certainly, you need to check on your school districts as far as location. I would also suggest that you have a home inspection for the, a home inspector to come out and verify that there’s nothing physically wrong with the property. Be sure that you always get title insurance as far as ensuring that you have marketable title and not just buy property and take a deed or something that someone is giving to you.
Sometimes I run into folks where they, this is something that they’ve done and they didn’t go through an attorney or obtain title insurance. There’s always problems there wherever you have a seller who says, “Oh, we don’t need an attorney,” or “We don’t need to get title insurance.” Be wary of that. I suggest if you’re going to make that kind of investment, even if it is seller financing, that you go ahead and go through a formal closing, see that your deed is recorded, and so that is some advice I’ve given to you.
Some of the other things you need to do is see whether or not it’s in a flood zone, so that’s going to impact you as far as your flood insurance is concerned. There are any number of mortgage programs involved, so if you’re going to finance it through a financial institution, need to ask them if they have a first-time homebuyers program, so that you may be able to get some favorable rates as far as being a first-time homebuyer.
So, buy and large, you need to talk to somebody that’s been there and seen what can happen. Particularly in this area, there’s any number of problems with sink holes, so if you’re going to be buying a repaired sink hole home, you need to be sure to get the engineering that goes along with it.
These are some of the things that you need to be concerned about, and certainly if you talk to an attorney who represents buyers or handle any number of real estate transaction, he can give you some guidance as far as helping you as far as your purchase is concerned, as well as your mortgage banker or your lender who has program for first-time homebuyers. If you would like to talk to me about that, give me a call at 727-847-2288. Thank you.