It’s been 25 years since my first experience as a home buyer. We were thrilled to find a house that was in our price range, met our family needs and was in a desirable neighborhood. My recollection of that purchase may be somewhat rose-colored, but the biggest concern I remember having was whether the owner was going to accept our offer, and if we had any competition. As it turned out, both of those were non-issues.

Jettison to today’s home buying situation. My newlywed daughter and her husband are living in the home he has owned for several years prior to their marriage. Recently they began looking at larger homes outside the city limits with a few acres of land. I got a call from her after they made an offer on a house, in which she expressed her anxiety over the whole process.

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If you’re buying a house because of a corporate relocation or military transfer, you can prevent fire-sale madness easily. Stop your whimsical real estate searches, drop your rush to eccentric housing and roll into a successful home purchase.

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Is there money out there to buy a house anymore? Officially, downpayment assistance is gone, but here are a few resources and alternative options I’ve previously blogged about to help you get your compass pointed in the right direction.

Approval from your online peers can help pay the mortgage - Have you ever heard of social lending? It’s social networking for money. You name your cost and tell your story, and your peers get to decide if you’re loan-worthy.  (more…)

Are you having a hard time pulling the trigger finger on the house of your dreams? You’re not alone. Many home buyers are looking, waiting … looking, drooling … looking, longing … looking and wanting to buy a house. Why don’t more make a move, when it’s a fact that in many real estate markets throughout the country, prices are off their inflated highs and more affordable than in the high-demand year of 2005?

Fear turns the dream of homeownership into the perceived nightmare of high risk. In most cases, fear is the number one culprit in letting go of your housing dreams: Fear of the current state of finances in the country. Fear of Wall Street worries. Fear of employment security. Fear of buying at the wrong time.

“There’s a little bit of fear (in the real estate market). It is always hardest to react when you’re afraid. All the money to be made is when you go against the trend. This is when you want to buy,” advises Dick Price, real estate agent in Boise Idaho.

How do you get from wish list to shopping cart? How do you buy a house in a real estate market fueled by fear? (more…)

Your goal as a home buyer: To find the best home possible to suit your needs, at the best price possible. Like a good house hunter would, you search, research and question, repeating this process until you find your new digs. After all your pre-purchase care, you ink the last signature on your offer to purchase. Then a curious thing happens … you discard your house buying regimen and waive the contingency for a home inspection.

Usually, home buyers choose not to have a home inspection because they want to “save money.” Pardon me? Yes, you heard right - usually home buyers choose not to have a home inspection because they want to save money.

This is misconception numero uno. A home inspection is essential to the well-being of your offer to purchase.

I’ll give you three reasons why a home inspection is the best way to measure your house’s blood pressure in three minutes flat. On your market, get set, go. (more…)

What is affordable housing and does it exist? The answer to this question should not be of blanket conformity because each homeowner’s goals, wallets and spending habits are unique to their situations. Much like the winter snowflakes that fall to the ground, we tend to take a cursory glance and forget that home buyers are all different. If you take a deeper look beyond the twinkle of homeownership hope in a home buyer’s eyes, you’ll see that no two home buyers are alike.

The key to successful homeowners is that they choose a custom-built lifestyle.

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If you yearn to be a home buyer but have been turned down by mortgage companies in the past … read this post. If you have a good income but haven’t been so great with paying your bills on time or have overextended yourself on credit cards … read this post. If you have a yearning for knowledge and like to learn … read this post.

Today’s post is a little inspiration for aspiring home buyers with bad credit and debt.

Downpayment assistance doesn’t have to be the only ticket to homeownership. A good plan and a steady hand can help to set you on track and get you to the closing table. “It used to be you tried to save three percent to put down on a house,” Diana Glasier, Senior Loan Officer at National City Mortgage, informed me.

During the last five years or more, it has become increasingly popular for home buyers to get downpayment assistance from grants or first-time home buyer programs like AmeriDream and Nehemiah.  Now that those programs are going away, does this squelch homeownership for real estate buyers? Glasier believes it will take some people out of the market, but there are other options. (more…)

The choices can be overwhelming in a real estate market saturated with inventory. REO properties and short sales - added to new construction and regular resale properties - make an interesting potluck for real estate buyers. If you are diligent, there are many great real estate buys across the United States today.

Most importantly, if you are realistic, you can hit a bullseye in real estate.

I spoke with Connect2Agent member and real estate agent in Scottsdale Arizona, Jan Green, about the multiple housing options buyers have to choose from. Similar to a multiple choice test, there is usually one right answer. Unlike that popular testing method, the right answer changes for each real estate buyer.

While a buyer’s final answer results in a big financial commitment, the reasons for the commitment are personal.

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Do foreclosures seem to be muddying the waters of your local real estate market? Have you been thinking about buying a house, but are leery of making a move toward these REO (bank owned) properties for fear of having your investment crash in around you?

Not all foreclosures are alike. They don’t all come with boarded up windows and 5-foot, sky-high weeds and grass. Many serious deficiencies with a bank-owned property have to be repaired in order for the bank to sell it. It is a bank’s goal to get these houses sold, not keep them on the books to eat a bigger hole in their balance sheets.

Is your appetite hungry for more information about foreclosures? I might have just the entree you are craving. I recently spoke with Andrew Capuano, a Connect2Agent member and real estate agent who sells Fairfax County real estate. Capuano migrated his business to specialize in REO properties and lended some great insight into the foreclosure market.

Read on and learn more. Carpe diem–Foreclosures can be a great deal for real estate buyers.

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No matter where you turn on the Internet, figures abound when it comes to real estate. You can get an estimate of your house value or make an offer to a homeowner who might be tempted to move. Real estate buyers can gain access to most of the houses that are listed on the market and sometimes even the price of those that have sold.

Are these intoxicating Internet statistics impairing Orange County real estate buyers‘ market prowess? Many real estate advisors seem to think so.

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