When is it "TOO SOON" to start looking at homes For Sale?

Most everyone agrees on the steps to finding your dream home. Get Pre-qualified, Find a great Realtor to represent you and start looking at homes that meet what you want to see. However what if the Loan Officer states you can not get a mortgage for 3, 4 or even 5 months for various reasons. If you know you can not get a mortgage right now, when should you start looking at homes to purchase?

This question has been brought to light in a recent inquiry where the buyer can not close until the end of June. It is the beginning of March. The problem is they want a Bank Owned Home in order to get the best deal on the market. There is nothing wrong with that. Except here in NH the amount of homes currently listed for sale is down near 30% in my area while sales are up 10-18%. That means Bank Owned homes that are priced at or near market vaklue are selling quickly. Most of my listings go under contract within 7 days with multiple offers. That means that what you look at today, probabily will be under contract in a week or two and will have closed long before the end of June.

Because of these facts I believe it is too early to be looking at Bank Owned Homes giving the fact that most banks will only wait 30 days to close on a conventional loan and 45 days for FHA. From experience, offers that have been submitted with a 75 to 90 + day closing time are either countered with 30 days, rejected or tossed aside for a contract with a quicker closing time.

The buyer is insisting on seeing Bank Owned Homes RIGHT NOW. I have been in Real Estate for 26 years, i have the patience of a saint when it comes to Real Estate and the experience based on Listing and Selling Bank Owned Homes to offer a real life account of examples of why it may be too early.

THE QUESTION IS: When is it too early to start looking at houses For Sale if you can not purchase for at least 3 months?

TOP 5 ITEMS YOU NEED TO KNOW IF BUYING A BANK OWNED HOME

1. GET PRE-QUAILIFIED: Before even looking at a home you should get pre-approved for a loan. No bank will look at your offer without it. Meet with a local and trusted mortgage broker, they can prequailify you at no cost, they will look at your credit plus your financials and let you know if there are any mortgages that you may qualify for. You should then tell them you are looking at bank owned homes so they can provide you with a list of what condition the property needs to be in for you to be able to get a mortgage.

2. WHO IS REPRESENTING YOU? : You should know that the listing agent represents the seller. there are some advantages working directly with a listing agent if you feel comfortable with buying. If not you may want to hire a buyer broker who is WELL EXPERIENCED in bank owned home sales. In inexpereinced agent can hurt more than help. You can usually hire a buyer broker at no cost to you, they get paid their commission from the fee advertsised in MLS by the listing agent and paid at closing. This way they can get the information for you and you will have someone assisting you through each step of the buying process.

3. MAKING AN OFFER THE HOUSE: Before making your offer you should know that most houses are sold "AS IS". The banks will not re-negotiate after a home inspection or make any repairs. Your best chance to get the bank to make repairs or credit you for repairs is in your initial offer. You shoud inspect the property before you put in the offer. If you dont want to spend the money for some reason, then when looking at the home you are going to need to look at the well, septic, roof, siding, windows, heating system, look under the sinks, in the basement for signs of water or mold, stains on the ceilings and anything that sticks out or if you are getting an fha loan, any safety issues.

Before making an offer, you should assess what the house is worth in todays market and deduct for any repairs needed. Do not base your offer on a percentage off an asking price. You dont know if the bank priced the house higher than market value, already at market value or priced it way below market value.



4. THE OFFER: In your offer you should make sure you attach your pre-quailification letter, you should make sure you put a closing date of 30 days or less, make sure your deposit is at least 1% of the sales price and it is a cashiers check. Try and avoid any contingincies other than an inspection and mortgage contingincy. Do not put any expiration dates in for the bank answering the offer.

5. KNOW THE TIME LINES: You should know that each bank works differently than any other. The Listing agent has a great deal responsibility to assist the asset manager and move the offer through the process of approval or counter offer. You can easily ask the listing agent what the average is for the bank. Banks can average 1-3 days to answer an offer. Most of my banks offer within 1 day and alot of times it is the same day. Allow 3-7 days from acceptance to get you the signed purchase and sales. The one thing you can do to speed up your own closing is to make sure the foreclsoure deed is complete and recorded, otherwise this could hold up your closing.


It does not take magic to turn your "For Sale" sign into a "Sold" sign. it takes a full time Local Agent who specializes in Listing homes like yours.

If you need to sell your home and you owe more than your house is worth, i may be able to help. I specialize in working with home owners to get your home sold. There are many options such as a short sale whcih may be able to help you.

Please try and avoid out of state or out of town agents and companies that make "out of this world promises". We are local agents with experience who never charge any up front fees.

WE GET RESULTS!!!

We stand by you through every step in selling your home.

PLEASE SEE MY TOP 10 RECENT BLOGS