Buy a House Fast

Any real estate agent who wants to win your business will make a lot of promises.  You want to buy or sell a great home at a great price that closes quickly with minimal hassle.  The agent assures you that he or she will make all this happen.  To facilitate this, if you’re a potential buyer, the agent shows you homes that fit your requirements and then helps you through the deal once you find one you like.  If you want to sell, the agent helps you price your home aggressively, attracts buyers including “the one” who buys it, and then helps you get the deal closed ASAP.

To make all this happen, your agent does a whole lot more than driving you around a few neighborhoods to see some homes or holding Sunday afternoon open houses to attract buyers. Real estate is complicated.  Sometimes both buyers and sellers think that once a buyer meets his dream home, some type of kismet takes over and all the details “fall into place.”  Your agent actually handles a million details behind the scenes so that you receive the quality of service you deserve.

Pick the Right Agent to Handle the Details

This is why picking the right agent – whether you are buying or selling – is crucial.  Express Realty Services, a leading Keller-Williams agency, provides the expert help you need to buy or sell a home in the Washington DC area, including Virginia and Maryland.  If you want to buy a pre-owned home, a bank-owned home, or a recently renovated and refurbished home, our simple buying process will be a quick and easy transaction.

Whether you are buying or selling, we will provide you with the latest information about the market and honestly help you assess what you can afford if you are a buyer or give you an honest appraisal of your home’s value if you are a seller. In either case, we are upfront and honest with you, even at the risk of losing your business if you don’t like what we have to say.  We take our duty of providing you with great customer service very seriously.  To us, great customer service is based on maintaining honest and continuous communication with you.

We Lay Out All the Details

We have a prepared a detailed manual on what to expect in your real estate transaction and what to expect from us.  Unlike the quick list of tips most agents offer, our manual is a comprehensive reference for what you need to know before, during, and after the sale or purchase.  Express Realty Services is in a client relationship with you for the long run.  Take a look at our buyer and seller manuals linked below then contact Express Realty Services today.

Express Realty Guide for Home Buyers

Express Realty Guide for Sellers

If you were buying a used car, you might take it to your mechanic for an inspection.  If it came back with a a recommendation that you buy new brakes, you could live with that. I f it came back with a report of impending transmission problems, you might pay the mechanic and run like the wind away from the deal.

When you buy a house, you should perform similar due diligence and order a home inspection.  Though laws in most states favor buyers when you find a major defect in your new house, it is time consuming and inconvenient to pursue actions with sellers after you have moved into your new home.  Assuming the problem is not major enough to void the contract, you may be stuck with a home with a flaw you would not have accepted had you only known it existed.  A simple way to prevent most dilemmas like this is to request a house inspection as a contingency of your offer.  This may seem like a no-brainer for distressed properties, but it makes good sense with any home.

What’s Covered

The inspection should cover what can be seen in major systems from roof to foundation.  Separate inspections may be necessary for termites, septic systems, or other specialized things like spas or pools.  It is not designed to critique aesthetics or lifestyle.

Ideally, when the inspection takes place, you should be there, but the seller should not.  The seller needs to provide access to all parts of the home and have the utilities on. The process might take several hours. If you are unable to be there for the whole inspection, try to come at the end so the inspector can walk you through the house and explain his findings before preparing his report.

What If…

When the inspector discloses his findings, you may have some decisions to make.  How serious are the flaws he found? How much will it cost to fix them?  What is the priority to fix them?   If the problems are serious enough, you might not want to complete your purchase.

Depending on the findings, your real estate agent may be able to use them to help you negotiate on price.  If the seller already mentioned a problem before the inspection and set the price based on that, it is unlikely he will further drop the price based on that.   If the flaw is a minor one or one that a sequence of previous owners have lived with, the seller may give a little to sell the house in this buyer’s market, but your agent can guide you as to what is reasonable to expect.

Prevent Problems

Though laws in most states favor buyers when you find a major defect in your new house, it is time consuming and inconvenient to pursue actions with sellers after you have moved into your new home.  Assuming the problem is not major enough to void the contract, you may be stuck with a home with a flaw you would not have accepted had you only known it existed.  A simple way to prevent most dilemmas like this is to request a house inspection as a contingency of your offer.