My Blog

So, you found your perfect home, now what? You fell in love with a home and now you’re thinking oh my gosh what do I do next? I haven’t thought past this point...

I’m going to explain the home buying process in 5 steps.

Dowload my free guide at the bottom of the page! 

#1 Earnest Money

Before we submit the offer to the seller's agent, we need to determine the amount of earnest money you will be giving, which is typically 1% of the offer price. Earnest money is a check that signifies to the seller that you are an interested and serious buyer. The earnest money check needs to be delivered to the listing office typically within 3 days after an offer has been accepted depending on what you agreed upon in your contract. That check does get cashed, so make sure you do have the funds available in your account! The amount does get credited back to you at closing. It is very important to have the money delivered by the date stated in the contract since it could be considered breach of contract if it does not.

#2 Financing

In the presented offer we will also have to include what type of financing you will have, such as Conventional, FHA, VA, what the approximate interest rate will be, how much money you're putting down, and the term of the loan. This is why it’s important to have a mortgage pre-approval before you start searching for a home. You will also have to include a date by when you would like to close. Since most mortgage approval processes take at least 30 days, a common closing is between 30-60 days from the offer acceptance. You will also need to have the loan application and loan process started within 10 business days of the offer acceptance. If you want to learn more about different types of financing you can click on the link above and that will take you to my other video where I explain that.

#3 Attorney Review and Inspection

From the date the offer is accepted by the seller, the buyer now has 5 business days for an attorney to review the contract and to have an inspection performed on the property. After that, we have 10 business days to negotiate on any finding during the home inspection. You will also need to obtain a home insurance quote within 10 business days.As you can see the first 10 days are going to be quite busy, but when you're working with a great realtor, attorney, and lender it really makes this process go very smooth.

#4 Next steps

Next, there is one more important piece, the appraisal. Your lender will order an appraisal on the home you're purchasing because they want to make sure the home is worth what you are paying for it.

#5 Closing fees

This is the amount of funding that you will need to have available at closing. A large amount of that will be for the home’s title fees and lender fees. The various title fees can add up to approximately $2800, however, lender fees vary quite largely from lender to lender depending on the mortgage structure. Some will charge points, others will just have higher processing fees and others could charge the processing fee upfront. The attorney fee due at closing varies from $400-$500. One of the most common upfront fees that you will be paying before closing is to your home inspector which can vary with the size of the home and ranges from $400-$700 based on that.

I know there are a lot of dates and steps to keep track of, so I've included a link where you can download my free date tracker.

There is a lot of price calculating that you need to consider when you start planning to buy or sell a home.

In order to make things a little easier for you, I've assembled a list of the lifespan and average cost of replacement of the common items that could need replacement in a home. I've been through quite a few moves and knowing information like this ahead of time can make the whole process go more smoothly, because you know what to expect.

I am here to educate and guide you through the process, so that you can can have the best experience possible. Feel free to reach out and let me know how I can help you.  

Thanks, 

Alex Schultz 

We quickly went from a housing market that we knew very well to one with a lot of uncertainty with how things will look in the future. Now, I don’t know about you, but when major events like this happen my mind jumps to the crash of 2008 because we all still remember very clearly how difficult those times were. My parents were one of the many families that had to foreclose on their home, and that is actually where my passion for real estate began. I wanted to help others to not end up in a situation where they were being taken advantage of, so it became my passion to learn anything and everything about real estate.

The housing market right now is very different than it was back then. In 2008 the market crash was caused by the actual housing entities. Loans were given to anyone and everyone whether or not they were able to afford the mortgage. Since then and until now the standards for giving out loans have remained conservative. 

Appreciation of homes has also remained a lot more stable than it was before the crash. Additionally, we don’t have a huge surplus of inventory like we did in 2008, we are actually at the opposite end and have a shortage of available homes. The biggest difference is that prior to the market crash of 2008, people were refinancing their homes at a high rate and taking the money out which then made it impossible for them to make their monthly payments.

From 2005-2007 there was a total of $824 Billion dollars in refinancing compared to from 2017-2019 where there was just $232 Billion. All of these are huge differences in our current housing market compared to the 2008 market.

Now that we are coming up into the busy Spring real estate season, there are still many safe options for buyers and sellers that still need to or want to move in the near future.

• If you are selling your home, you can ask your agent to do a virtual house tour for interested buyers or host a virtual open house. You can still have showings as well, but just limit it to the number of people and have the agent be the one opening all the doors or cabinets.
• If you are a buyer, your agent can preview the homes for you and either face time you or send a video. If you’re really interested after that, then you can schedule an appointment to go see it. These methods have already been used widely by people relocating from out of state we are just now incorporating them into our local markets.

If you have any questions about whether you should sell your house or buy a house please reach out to me and I would more than happy to answer them and provide some guidance.  

Do you need to buy or sell a home?  I can help! 

Since we have all been on our stay at home order in Illinois to fight the spread of the Coronavirus, there has been some uncertainty in the state of the housing market.     

Housing is an essential business and there are still plenty of people who NEED to buy and sell their homes.   

Your safety is my number one concern, and I would like to tell you about the services that I can offer during these difficult times. 

One of the best tools that we can use right now is Video Chat! – 

 I can meet with you and your family using the Facetime, Facebook messenger video, or any of the other video chat services available.  If you want to look at homes, I can preview them first and show them to you live.  If you need to sell, you can show me your home and I can offer tips and advice on what we can do to get it sold. 

Open houses are not allowed at this time, but a good alternative is live video marketing.  I can host a virtual open house in your home and allow others to see its features as well as tour the floorplan while answering questions.    

Finally, you can still go out and look at homes.  I will work with you and everyone’s safety as my number one priority.   

Please feel free to call or email to discuss all of the options that I can offer you.  Thanks for reading and I hope to hear from you soon!