buyers' advantage...
Finding the right home in the Chicago’ Real Estate Market can be a daunting task. There are tons of decision to make and timelines to maintain. But never fear, Metropolitan International is here to assist you in making the right moves and keeping that critical timeline on schedule. Below is an outline of the home buying process that is sure to make your home buying experience a pleasant time. And if you need further assistance we are standing by ready willing and able to help.
buying Chicago' real estate?...
Finding a Good Lender is the First Step to finding that Dream Home. You must know what you can afford, down payment needed, money that will be due at closing & your mortgage payments. Most sellers will not entertain an offer without a pre-approval letter. Your lender can provide one. Furthermore, if a seller receives multiple offers, the one with the pre-approval letter usually wins out.
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Next, we will assist you in locating the perfect community being careful not to exceed your budget. There are three rules in Real Estate—location, location & location. In Real Estate, size does not always mater. Therefore, to stay in ones budget, a buyer/s may select a home with a smaller yard in a great school district that has yielded higher than average resale home values.
Once you have chosen your favorite communities, we will create a search query in our powerful database. This database is available only to Real Estate professionals. We can input (Number of Bedrooms, School Zones, Floor Plan Style, Fireplaces, ...) close to 100 fields of data to locate your dream home. Our Agents preview the homes first and shows you the ones based on your instructions. This way you do not waste your valuable time. And when you do walk into the homes you will know that we did our job—well done.
The next step would be to come up with a reasonable offer. The selling price and the closing date are the most critical aspects of a contract. The offering price is not pulled from the sky. We will conduct a conclusive market analysis to determine the best offering price and advise you thereof. However, the offering price is totally the buyer/s decision.
Traditionally, buyers offer less than “Asking price.” However, a ridiculous lowball offer may insight a seller to blacklist you and refuse to entertain anymore offers that come from you. With a low offer one must be prepared for the posibility of loosing the house altogether. We will help you find a happy medium that will be just enough to entice the seller to consider your offer or run the risk of loosing a serious buyer/s. After all, trying to save a couple thousand dollars (Pennies over the course of a mortgage) may not be worth sacrificing the home of your dreams.
You may want to increase the asking earnest money. This money is placed in an escrow account and it shows ones sincerity on purchasing the property. By increasing the escrow monies demonstrates your confidence in being able to purchase to the seller. In addition, this may be a powerful negotiating strategy to help lower the sale’s price.
Once the contract is signed (Executed) by all parties, the home should be inspected by a licensed professional home inspector. They will inspect the home from top to bottom and may uncover defects that were not know by the seller. In turn, this could save you thousands in repair cost. We highly recommend using a home inspector within the first 5 days after executing a contract.
In addition to having the home inspection, we recommend getting a home warranty. This insurance will cover most major repairs between the time you sign the contact and the closing. Furthermore, it will be in effect for at least one year after you close the deal. The contract can be renewed when it expires. We always ask the seller to supply a home warranty as part of our negotiation procedures.
Along with the buyer, we will conduct our First Walk Through a few days prior to closing. We will make sure that the home is in the same condition as when the contract was executed and make sure that all defects noted by the home inspector were corrected. And on the day of the closing we will do our Final Walk Through to complete our inspections.
You will receive your keys at the closing once all paperwork has been agreed upon and signed.
Now we celebrate!