Real Estate Buying Tip

Posted by Shanna on Oct 18, 2011 in Blog, Buying Real Estate, Real Estate Tips | 0 comments

Before you start looking at houses, make sure to consider whether or not you are going to ask the seller to pay for closing costs and exactly how much your closing costs will cost approximately. Once you are pre-approved, your lender should be able to give you a ball park number.

You want to make sure you consider this when deciding at what price point to search, and also when deciding what you are going to offer on a house.  It may seem premature, but you don’t want to bump up your price too much, expecting the Seller to decrease their price is you are also asking for 3% in closing costs.  You could end up finding the perfect house, make an offer and then find out it is out of your budget.  Save yourself the heartache!

Look at it through the Seller’s eyes, if they are selling a house for $200k with $3,000 in closing costs, it is about the same as them selling the house for $197k without closing costs.  Sellers care about their bottom line; how much money they are going to walk away with from the sale or owe.  BUT, it may affect your starting offer, so you need to consider this. Looking at houses at $205k if your budget is $200k and you want $3,000 in closing costs may be a stretch depending on the average sale price to list price ratio within the area you want to live.

Shanna Lafontaine is a Realtor with RE/MAX Affiliates who works the Dublin, Hilliard, Powell, Worthington, Westerville, Delaware and surrounding Columbus areas helping both Buyers and Sellers.