Ep10: Touring Homes
hey i'm Zeke and i'm Brian and you're watching two guys talking home buying hey everybody welcome to today's episode of two guys talking homeline we're glad that you're here if you're not familiar with the show our purpose is real simple we want to help as many renters as possible to become homeowners and not just to buy their first home but to help them go through the home buying process and have fun with it and not to be so stressed out a lot of people get stressed when they buy a home especially their first home and so we want you to go through the process and enjoy it and have fun and really kind of celebrate uh your accomplishments so we cover all nine steps of the home buying process on our show and we dig deep into different topics within each of those nine steps and today what we're going to specifically go into is touring homes which is step four of the ninth steps to purchasing your first home hey everyone i'm zeke i'm the social media director here at showcase agency and i'm also looking to purchase my first piece of real estate this year i have a lot of questions and i'm very excited to get started in this episode so yeah yeah very cool and my name is brian i'm the president and found a co-founder of showcase agency we're a real estate and mortgage company so that means we help people to buy homes sell homes and to get home financing and i've co-founded the company with my wife karen back in 2017 and karen's been a licensed realtor since 2001 and i've been licensed as a loan officer since 2005 so together we have over 38 years of combined experience so we're super experienced with this especially first-time homebuyers and when zeke was shooting our other videos where he's normally behind the camera he had a lot of great questions about first time buying that's when i found out you know he was planning to buy his own home first piece of real estate here soon and we just thought it would be a lot of fun to get in front of the camera with his questions if you're a first-time homebuyer you might be able to relate to some of these questions and uh you know today what we're gonna really dig deep into is uh step four touring homes stick around to the end we are going to cover a viewer question and we've got a couple of great offers for you as well so hang around till the end but let's go ahead and get started we're talking about step number four in the process uh you're touring homes and zeke what's the first question you've got awesome how many homes should i score okay so there's no set answer on that it's you know you want to go see all the homes that interest you that are available so that might be two homes or three homes it could be one house or whatever some people end up making an offer on the very very first house that they see and sometimes they're a little nervous about that because well sometimes they're nervous about not going to see other houses so sometimes they'll go look at two or three houses but they end up making an offer on the first one so there's really no set number to how many you should see and definitely don't feel nervous about putting an offer in on the very first one you see sometimes that's the the one that's the right one for you awesome thank you for that okay you're welcome moving on to my next question is uh can i tour homes without my agents so yes you can you can so when you're so if you have an agent you really want to let your agent know what you're up to if you're planning to go like drop in some open houses over the weekend or something so if if there's some open houses and you're interested in those open houses and your agent isn't available to help you you know to go see them or you don't want your agent to come with you because you know you're not really sure like when you're going to get there or that kind of stuff and you want to be more flexible then just let your agent know hey i'm going to drop in some open houses and then that way they know what's going on if there's not an open house then your only other option if you're if your own agent isn't able to take you to the house your option would be to call other agents but that's really not uh advisable because you're working with someone else so so if it's an open house and you just want to drop in the open house no problem but if you need to get another agent to let you in then that's you know uh typically frowned upon i understand yeah and if you're out and if you're in contract with your agent your buyer's agent if you're in a a buyer's agency agreement where you're you've got to work with them on whatever property you know you've actually got to clear things with them uh uh if you try to go to another agent oh wow yeah thanks for explaining that so well yeah nah no worries thank you great question thank you um my next question is how can i schedule a home score okay so if you've got your own agent so there's a couple of things going on you you may be working with your own buyers agent or you might be working like directly with the listing agent so in the case of if you have your own buyer's agent and there's a house that you want to go see your agent is going to schedule all of that for you they're going to set up the time that you're going to meet there at the house and they're going to have a way to access things to get inside the house typically the owners whoever lives there typically they've left sometimes they're kind of hanging around but most of the time they've left and so you've got your time there so that would be how you would schedule it through your own buyer's agent now and they have access to any home that's on the multiple listing service so you know they've got access to just about you know everything um if you're going through the listing agent so in other words you don't have your own buyer's agent then if you're going through the listing agent you would have to contact each listing agent individually to say hey you know i'm interested in this specific house you're the listing agent would you let me you know take a look at it awesome yeah so it's going to depend on if you're working with a buyer's agent or not and then if it's a for sale by owner if it's a fsbo um you know you're just there's no agents involved at all so you're just dealing directly with the homeowner okay perfect thank you so it's a little different their way okay are kids allowed to go on home tours they they are kids are allowed on home tours um a lot of times people bring their kids along uh sometimes they don't just whatever you know is is uh preferred for you and um but yeah kids are allowed thank you and then also is there a limit to how many people i can bring on the home tour no not really you know there's really no limit um and if there's people if there are people involved in you know you getting the loan and they want to have some kind of say so over you know the house like we see sometimes where you might have there might be a parent that's providing a gift or a parent that's co-signing and this is going to be a home you know for the for the kid to live in and you know they want to have some say-so about the home because you know they're putting some money in or they're putting their name on the loan or whatever so if you've got other people that are involved and they are going to be involved in that decision it's best just to get them all out there so don't be afraid of taking you know everybody that you need to take you know and the same thing goes even if the person isn't going on the loan but maybe they're going to be paying you know rent you know border income they're going to be paying for a room and they've got to approve of the place because they want to approve of the room we see that sometimes where parents want the kids to really you know like the rooms that they get so the kids have a little bit of a say-so over things so don't be afraid to you know take everybody out to look at the homes because if if you go out on a saturday and you see something that you love but you've got to come back on a sunday or a monday to bring everybody else you know the house could be under contract by then you never know so you always want to be in a position to where you're able to act fast if you do want to make an offer and to do that it's a good idea to get everybody you know looking at the homes that's gonna you know be involved thank you yeah i would bring everyone yeah to me yeah and even if the people if even if the person doesn't have a say-so in it in in the house um the buyer you know may just trust that person's opinion you know it could be a close friend it could be a family member or whatever and you know maybe they just want somebody else along uh to kind of give them another perspective since they you know already trust this person and sometimes they're working with the realtor and they haven't known that realtor for very long so there still could be some trust issues there makes sense yeah perfect thank you yeah for that okay um how do i tour home when people are still living there okay so when people are still living in the house they will have an arrangement with their realtor on how they want the house to be shown so they'll have like specific times that they're willing to make the home available in times that they're not so they kind of so sometimes people will be like you know monday through friday i'm trying to get the kids off to school i don't want to be dealing with anything uh anybody coming into our house uh until the kids are at school so sometimes you know a person will say monday through friday no showings until nine you know 9 a.m or later some people might say oh we don't want any showings after 6 p.m or after 8 p.m or whatever so the seller is going to communicate that to the listing agent and then the listing agent is going to kind of you know uh coordinate all of the schedule of the showings so that it fits into the seller's schedule so and then typically the seller is going to leave the house at the time of the appointment so if you have an appointment at one o'clock typically when you get there at one you're going to meet your own buyer's agent and then the buyer's agent has access to a key to open the house and so now you know the seller knows that somebody's going to be there at one o'clock so they're not there so typically a lot of times they've already left and so when you get there the house is pretty much just kind of vacant a lot of sellers nowadays are putting up cameras so they can kind of see what's going on people are kind of nervous about people you know taking their stuff or looking through their stuff which is understandable yeah so you know so so you pretty much just go through the house and you take a look around and um if there's anything visible that you have questions about like there might be a crack in the stucco or there might be you know where maybe you have a question about the ceiling uh where there's a stain and you wonder if that was some kind of you know leak from the roof so you can go through and you can check out the house and and um uh you know prepare any questions that you've got and that kind of thing but that's basically how it works you know they know when they're you're going to be there and then they're out of the house and they give you enough time to you know look around and such usually you know you know usually like 30 minutes is enough time to see a house perfect thank you for that yeah yeah yeah so that kind of answers my next question but my next one was it anyway let's hear it it was um what's the latest time i can tour a home yeah and and that's again as you figured out that's going to depend on the seller some sellers are going to be like you know we don't care we just want to get this place sold the the sooner somebody sees it the better so so sometimes people have a you know really wide range of hours sometimes they're more particular where they're like you know i don't want anybody upsetting the kids i don't want anybody dealing with us at in the morning we're trying to get to school and to work and things like that so it's going to be individual based on based on the seller and you know what they're allowing perfect thank you for that and i believe that's uh was that your last question yes all right so hang around guys we've got something else here um since we're talking about step four of the nine steps which is you know touring homes you're basically finding homes that you want to see normally you're finding them online zillow realtor.com any of those kind of sites or you might uh see some homes you're just driving around you might see some new construction signs where it says you know new homes in the 600s that kind of thing you know you might be driving around in a neighborhood that you've always wanted to live in and all of a sudden you know you see a for sale sign that went up so you know touring homes is this step of the process is about finding homes that you want to see and then going out there and looking at them in person whether that be at an open house or with your own realtor or however you're you know you're going about doing this so this is a time i wanted to point out a few things um when you're talking to your realtor you know there's a lot of back and forth at this point with your agent if you're using a buyer's agent and some of that back and forth might be about the condition of the home or the type of home that you want and so for example if you were looking for a fixer upper specifically fixer upper is what i want to talk about so if you were looking for a fixer upper be sure that when you're you know talking to your agent about fixer uppers that your agent really understands what you're looking for to some people fixer upper means you know i'm gonna put up you know i'm gonna paint uh that's a fixer-upper to some people to other people they're good with like ripping up the floors ripping up the kitchen you know tearing out the bathrooms and replacing all of that stuff some people are good with like tearing down the wall and adding on to the house those are all different levels of projects in all different levels of fixer upper so at this stage one of the things that you're doing like i just mentioned is is you've got to find the homes that you want to go see and then hopefully you're going to look at homes that you know you'd actually be interested in so make sure when you're you know talking to your realtor at this stage and you guys are just getting to know each other that you're really clear about the kind of home that you're looking for uh if you're using language like fixer upper for example so that's you know one thing i wanted to point out because we do want to make this go smooth for you and you know touring homes is a lot of fun uh but it's just like every other step in this process it's work you know and you've got an objective you're not just going out there to tour homes you're going out there to find the one that you're going to secure you're going to get the winning offer and you're going to close on that house and live in that house for you know however long so um so it's an important step so make sure that when you're talking with your realtor you're communicating about what it is that you really really want um another thing that i wanted to point out that makes this a smoother process is um in some situations during the step number four uh it may be necessary for you to reach out to your loan officer like let's say for example you're looking at a home and it has a homeowner's association fee and you you know weren't planning on buying a property with a homeowner's association fee so how is that fee going to affect how you qualify for the loan um you know and that's one reason you might want to bring the loan officer in when you see a specific home you tour a home and it has a hoa you know you might reach out to the loan officer to find out hey is this going to cause any problem with my qualifying does that make sense yes yeah and and and then another thing too with the loan officer you know maybe you were looking at single-family homes but now you're considering a condo and you want to find out if there's any change to the type of program because some condominium complexes require uh or some loan programs like fha require that the condominium complex actually be approved prior by the fha and and not all complexes are also too if you switch from a single family home to a condo and you're using a conventional loan sometimes the interest rate is higher because it's a condo so this those are reasons that you might want to pull your loan officer in um if you start looking at properties that are a little bit different than what you have been you know like quoted before with your uh home loan quotes um this one we kind of talked about earlier you know if you've got a lot of decision makers people that are going to be involved in deciding hey this is the house that we want to you know make an offer on get them all along on the tour if possible that was a great question thank you yeah um and then like we said get everybody on on the same page too about the type of home you know sometimes you'll get everybody out there you know looking at the houses but nobody can agree on what type of house sometimes you know these folks want an older home other half of them want a newer home or some of them want a bigger yard someone want a smaller yard so you gotta at some point get everybody on the same page that doesn't always happen right away so sometimes we'll you know just show people a few homes even though you know we know that you know only half of them are interested in that home because if we show enough homes usually two or three eventually they'll kind of figure out how to come to whatever compromise that they've got to come to so that's another thing so give it some time if you're if you can't all get along just be sure you all go out there and look at the houses together and eventually it'll kind of work it work itself out that's usually the way it goes and new construction we really didn't talk about it on here but if you're going to tour new construction it's a lot of fun there's model homes so usually the builder might have say maybe five or six or seven different models usually more like you know four or five models and the models are decorated really nice so it's a lot of fun to go out there and see the brand new homes and if you decide that you want to purchase one of those they'll have an agent that's on site that kind of writes up all of their paperwork but you can also have your own agent if you are going to go tour homes and you're going to go look at new construction homes be sure and if you have an agent be sure you take your agent with you because if you don't take your agent with you on that first visit then they won't allow the agent to represent you and get paid later wow yeah so so that's new construction and if you guys want to know where to find new construction homes you can go to newhomesource.com or you can also go fill out the form that we've got at showcasenewconstruction.com and that's for new construction homes hot list since we're talking about you know touring homes uh let's say that you're looking for homes your realtor is looking for homes for you you know you're on zillow all the time and you're just not finding anything that fits in your home buying criteria don't get frustrated just try expanding your criteria a little bit you know maybe going a little bit further out um maybe going with you know like three bedrooms and an office instead of four bedrooms um you know so looking at different options maybe going you know considering townhouses as well as single family homes so when you widen your criteria it will it's a good place to start if you're a few weeks into this process and you haven't really found any homes that you even want to go see so so if you're kind of running dry on finding the homes that you want to go see widen your uh criteria that makes sense okay cool and then i would say the last thing uh and then we'll tackle that viewer question but the last thing uh i wanted to point out in this step is if you are beginning to encounter any problems at all with your buyer's agent so the agent that's working for you if you start to encounter any problems they're not showing up for the appointments on time they're always making excuses as to why they can't show this house or that house or whatever or they don't they start you know like not returning your calls very promptly or not returning your text promptly now is the time to confront any issues like that because if you continue if you stick with this agent and you get into escrow it's probably just going to be like more of the same you know from that agent there's no reason to really expect that it's going to get better so you know you're either going to need to you know confront that person and come up with some kind of solution for them to get back on track back in your good races because remember you're the client you know um they're they work for you not the other way around so um you're either gonna have to you know get things back on track with that agent or you're gonna have to cut them loose and like we talked about a little bit earlier if you're in a buyer's agency agreement uh you'll have to get out of that agreement as well so that's a lot about touring homes step number four of the nine steps to buy a house we want to cover a viewer question but first let's cut away and check out a couple of great offers that we have for you guys hey it's brian at showcase agency if you're going to buy a home and you're thinking man i'm taking out this giant loan and making this huge commitment and i just want to go with my best option then we've got two great offers for you the first is the beginner's guide to first first-time homebuy if you're going to buy your first home it takes nine steps nine steps to go from renting to owning this comprehensive guide covers all nine steps in detail you can download it for free at showcasefreeguy.com the second offer is
a discovery call with me or karen either of us can answer every question you have about buying your first home and we can direct you to additional resources we're sure you'll find helpful there's no pressure no sales pitch there's no obligation or hassle you can sign up at showcasecall.com and just because it's another six months or a year before you're ready to buy that doesn't mean you shouldn't be thinking about it now and planning ahead pick up our free guide for first-time homebuyers at showcasefreeguide.com and schedule a discovery call so we can go over your plans and timeline together we can answer all of your questions and we'll send you links to additional resources you'll find helpful go to showcasecall.com and we're back thank you guys hope you guys enjoyed it and let's get right into our viewer question all right so we close soon we close soon what do i bring with me on closing day awesome congratulations it's an exciting time it's time to close and by closing uh what we mean is you're going to have a big stack of papers to sign inc sign so this isn't an electronic signature you actually are going to have old school you know paper to sign and you're going to meet with a notary and the notary is a person that's going to make sure that you are who you say you are so the thing to bring to the closing is going to be two forms of id because the notary is going to need to see two forms of id to verify that you are who you are so that's all you got to bring they should supply a pen for you um be sure that you're ready to sign and that your wrist is ready because you're going to sign a lot of times but that's all you need is just two forms of id awesome thank you for that yeah absolutely so hope you guys uh enjoyed this today we enjoyed shooting this for you i hope you learned some things about touring homes and if you're going to buy a house and you've got questions we'd love to answer them for you you can text or call us at 949-518-0742 and also too check out our free guide for first-time homebuyers at showcasefreeguide.com
awesome and if you guys have any questions just go ahead and comment them down below and we'll be sure to answer them in one of our videos and also please subscribe to our channel hit the like button hit the like button and turn on your post notifications to see when we upload next yeah perfect we'll see you next time take care
2022-05-20 14:12
