Texas Resale (Existing) Home Buyer Services
New Home Counsel provides buyer representation services for home buyers planning to purchase an existing home. If you are thinking about purchasing a home you find on Realtor.com or Zillow, it is critical you get buyer representation. Homes shown in MLS are marketed by listing agents - Realtors that represent the home seller. As a home buyer, you want a trusted agent on your side. We provide home buyers the opportunity to interview two buyer agents. You can then select one of these agents to represent you in home sales negotiations and other services.
Buyer Orientation |
Search, Offer & Closing |
— Finance 101 --
The most important step in buying a new home is knowing what you can afford. Working with a buyer representative, you can determine how much house you can afford based on your down payment and other factors like insurance, property taxes. The other big factor that buyers sometimes forget is the money needed for closing, which is above and beyond the down payment. Getting to a common understanding on your max budget and the real cost of ongoing utilities saves a lot of time and heartache down the road. — Mortgage Pre-Approval -- Houses in good neighborhoods will always be more competitive. Today, most sellers won’t even entertain offers that don’t include a mortgage pre-approval letter. Your buyer agent can walk you through the types of documentation that will typically be needed to obtain a mortgage and connect you with a few possible lenders. — Site Selection -- Most people have no problem identifying where they would love to live. The key is seeing if that area/neighborhood matches with the buyer’s budget. Doing a few quick searches online will quickly identify if your criteria will meet up with reality. Even with the right budget, some neighborhoods have few homes for sale at any given time. This must be done just before you’re ready to start viewing homes. — Home Criteria Analysis -- A good buyer’s representative will be able to ask the right questions to really understand a buyer’s lifestyle. Extra bedrooms, baths, or a third car garage may be things a buyer regrets not getting 3-5 years down the road. The right house in a good neighborhood is often better than a bad house in the best neighborhood. Adding bedrooms, baths, and extensions later is very expensive compared to just getting the right house the first time. — MLS Alerts Setup -- Most agents will be able to setup buyers with home criteria email alerts from MLS. When a house meets said buyer’s criteria, they get an email with the MLS info. |
— Home Tours --
House hunting can be really fun or depressing depending on if proper expectations are set. Your buyer agent can meet or drive you around to the various homes that meet your budget and criteria. If weekends and late hours are important, make sure you tell your buyer rep what will work for you. Getting paired with an agent that lives close to your target area is good for a number of reasons, one being they can meet you multiple times per week with little notice. Using a family member for your agent is nice, but can be a burden if they have to drive an hour to meet you at the property. — Offer Submittal -- Submitting an offer to a home seller not only requires completing all the documents correctly, but making sure certain deadlines are met at specific steps in the process. Using a buyer’s representative will ensure the right paperwork is submitted at the right time. — Contract Negotiation -- Most home buyers do not negotiate deals worth several hundred thousand dollars on a weekly basis. Not having an agent and working with the agent that listed the home in the MLS means you give up your negotiating power. Working with the buyer rep you are able to get professional guidance, plus, you need someone who is not emotionally tied to the property similar to how a surgeon wouldn’t want to operate on their spouse. — Inspection Coordination -- The inspection is one of those critical steps that is definitely needed when buying an existing home. It has to be done within a certain time period and you need to know what types of inspections to request. Your buyer agent can walk you through this process. — Closing Documents -- Getting to the closing table is easier when you have someone on your team to help close out all the paperwork needed by various parties – the lender, the title company, the inspector, the home insurance rep, the listing agent. — Follow-Up* -- Closing on an existing home means that there will likely be things that need to be fixed or addressed in the near future. A good buyer’s rep will follow-up with you to ensure you file your homestead exemption at the right time and even provide a list of vendors for repairs that may need to be made. |
* Not all services are available in every city in Texas. Please ask your agent what they will provide during your free 1-hour consultation
FAQ
Q: IS IT RISKIER BUYING A RESALE HOME VS. NEW CONSTRUCTION?
A: The best advice we can give (from personal experience) is that most resale homes will need some level of repair with 1-3 years from purchase. You should factor those costs in when deciding to buy an existing property. If you use all your money to get the house, those needed repairs will sit for too long. With a new home, any structural and mechanical things are typically covered at least for the first year, so there is a lower risk of any out of pocket expenses early on.
Q: CAN I BUY A FOR SALE BY OWNER (FSBO) HOME?
A: Most transactions in Texas go through two agents: one that represents the seller and one that represents the buyer. Even new services that will sell a home for a fixed price like Open Door work within this agent model. There is nothing wrong with buying a home directly from a seller – it’s perfectly legal; however, greater risk may be introduced into the process if both parties aren’t familiar with all the steps in how to legitimately transfer real property. Most buyer agents in Texas are paid at closing from the seller’s proceeds. If you buy a home from a FSBO, they are probably trying to save the commission on their end (i.e. the seller) and the buyer side (i.e. your agent). If you sign a buyer rep agreement with an agent, you may be on the hook for the agent’s commission. Make sure you have this conversation with your agent before you start looking at houses as it does come up. In some cases a seller may split the commission with you to pay your buyer agent.
Q: HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO PURCHASE AN EXISTING HOME?
A: While investors can close on a home in as little as 5 days, most consumers will need a full 4 weeks to take possession of their home – buyers need to get financing lined up, the lender needs to get appraisals done, and many documents need to go over to the title company in prep for closing. This assumes that nothing major is found in the inspection and no big repairs are required that need permits, etc.
Q: HOW MANY HOMES SHOULD I EXPECT TO TOUR?
A: We recommend something around 10 homes, but no more than 20. If your agent has shown you more than 20 homes and you don’t like any of them, you need to revisit your criteria and house budget.
Q: IS PRE-APPROVAL WITH A LENDER THAT CRITICAL?
A: Texas has some of the fastest growing cities in the country in both Dallas and Houston. No state income tax, good weather, low housing prices, and plenty of major corporations are making Texas a hotbed of migration from other states like California, New York, Colorado, Illinois, Washington, and Florida. Buyers coming from some of these states are prepared to bid higher than the asking price. In order to be competitive, buyers must have all their financing lined up when they make the offer. In North Texas in 2017, homes were flying off the market in less than one week. We have personally seen homes get 20+ offers in less than 48 hours – these were not anomalies but regular occurrences, especially for homes under $300K in DFW.
Q: CAN MY AGENT TELL ME WHICH NEIGHBORHOODS ARE THE BEST?
A: Best is a relative term, but more importantly, by law, agents cannot steer you to particular neighborhoods. Therefore, if you are looking for information on neighborhood demographics, crime rates, and other facts, your agent can simply point you to online resources to get this information. They are not trying to be difficult, they are simply working within the boundaries to treat everyone fairly.
Q: CAN I SUBMIT OFFERS ON TWO HOMES AT THE SAME TIME?
A: Yes. While this shouldn’t be a regular practice, in hot markets it’s done in order for a buyer to secure at least one of the properties they like. Buyers who do this will lose the option money for the house they decide to not purchase in the event both offers are accepted by each seller.
A: The best advice we can give (from personal experience) is that most resale homes will need some level of repair with 1-3 years from purchase. You should factor those costs in when deciding to buy an existing property. If you use all your money to get the house, those needed repairs will sit for too long. With a new home, any structural and mechanical things are typically covered at least for the first year, so there is a lower risk of any out of pocket expenses early on.
Q: CAN I BUY A FOR SALE BY OWNER (FSBO) HOME?
A: Most transactions in Texas go through two agents: one that represents the seller and one that represents the buyer. Even new services that will sell a home for a fixed price like Open Door work within this agent model. There is nothing wrong with buying a home directly from a seller – it’s perfectly legal; however, greater risk may be introduced into the process if both parties aren’t familiar with all the steps in how to legitimately transfer real property. Most buyer agents in Texas are paid at closing from the seller’s proceeds. If you buy a home from a FSBO, they are probably trying to save the commission on their end (i.e. the seller) and the buyer side (i.e. your agent). If you sign a buyer rep agreement with an agent, you may be on the hook for the agent’s commission. Make sure you have this conversation with your agent before you start looking at houses as it does come up. In some cases a seller may split the commission with you to pay your buyer agent.
Q: HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO PURCHASE AN EXISTING HOME?
A: While investors can close on a home in as little as 5 days, most consumers will need a full 4 weeks to take possession of their home – buyers need to get financing lined up, the lender needs to get appraisals done, and many documents need to go over to the title company in prep for closing. This assumes that nothing major is found in the inspection and no big repairs are required that need permits, etc.
Q: HOW MANY HOMES SHOULD I EXPECT TO TOUR?
A: We recommend something around 10 homes, but no more than 20. If your agent has shown you more than 20 homes and you don’t like any of them, you need to revisit your criteria and house budget.
Q: IS PRE-APPROVAL WITH A LENDER THAT CRITICAL?
A: Texas has some of the fastest growing cities in the country in both Dallas and Houston. No state income tax, good weather, low housing prices, and plenty of major corporations are making Texas a hotbed of migration from other states like California, New York, Colorado, Illinois, Washington, and Florida. Buyers coming from some of these states are prepared to bid higher than the asking price. In order to be competitive, buyers must have all their financing lined up when they make the offer. In North Texas in 2017, homes were flying off the market in less than one week. We have personally seen homes get 20+ offers in less than 48 hours – these were not anomalies but regular occurrences, especially for homes under $300K in DFW.
Q: CAN MY AGENT TELL ME WHICH NEIGHBORHOODS ARE THE BEST?
A: Best is a relative term, but more importantly, by law, agents cannot steer you to particular neighborhoods. Therefore, if you are looking for information on neighborhood demographics, crime rates, and other facts, your agent can simply point you to online resources to get this information. They are not trying to be difficult, they are simply working within the boundaries to treat everyone fairly.
Q: CAN I SUBMIT OFFERS ON TWO HOMES AT THE SAME TIME?
A: Yes. While this shouldn’t be a regular practice, in hot markets it’s done in order for a buyer to secure at least one of the properties they like. Buyers who do this will lose the option money for the house they decide to not purchase in the event both offers are accepted by each seller.