Par t III: Property, Players, and Prices in .NET

Encoding QR Code in .NET Par t III: Property, Players, and Prices

We ll say it again: Buying a home is a team sport Successful transactions result from the coordinated efforts of many people agents, brokers, lenders, property inspectors, escrow officers, tax advisors, and lawyers Each player brings a different set of skills to the game and should make an important contribution to your team As long as your experts stick to what they know best, everything goes smoothly Whenever one of your experts invades another expert s turf, however, war breaks out with a bang Unsolicited opinions related to property values are an example of one devastating type of gratuitous advice Such opinions are usually volunteered by tax advisors or lawyers during a review of your transaction Lawyers and tax advisors don t know property values Making a low-ball offer based on their bad advice, no matter how well intentioned, can blow the deal on your dream home Incredibly, some buyers foolishly solicit gratuitous advice in a misguided attempt to save a few bucks Why, buyers ask themselves, hire a CPA for tax advice if we can get free tax advice from our agent Why pay for legal advice from a lawyer if our escrow officer can give us free opinions about the best way for us to take title to our home Why Because if you re lucky, free advice from the wrong expert is worth exactly what you pay for it Zip Zero Nada Nothing If you re unlucky, free advice can be very expensive The IRS, for example, shows no mercy if you make a mistake based upon faulty advice Ironically, this type of mistake usually ends up costing you far more than a lawyer or tax advisor would have charged you for correct advice Given the adverse consequences of bad advice, good experts don t offer guidance that they aren t qualified to give If asked, they categorically refuse to give such advice Instead, they redirect their clients to the proper experts Good experts are wise enough to know what they don t know and humble enough to admit it On a more selfish level, they don t want to get sued by their clients for giving lousy advice Beware of experts who offer you gratuitous advice outside their fields of expertise

What s it worth The wrong answer to this question can cost you big bucks! Worse yet, there s no simple answer to this deceptively simple question, because home prices aren t precise As 10 explains, you can t reduce home prices to a math problem where 2 plus 2 reassuringly equals 4 now and forevermore Home prices aren t fixed on the contrary, they slither all over the place Houses sell for fair market value, which is whatever buyers offer and sellers accept Fair market value isn t a specific number; it s a price range Suppose that you make an offer on a house worth about $150,000 If the seller has a better agent than you do, and you re desperate to buy, you may end up paying $160,000 On the other hand, if you re in no hurry to buy, and your agent is a good negotiator, you may be able to buy the home for $140,000 Home sale prices are often directly related both to the agent s knowledge of what comparable houses have sold for and to the agent s negotiating skills Of course, other factors (such as the buyer s and seller s motivation, needs, and knowledge) are also important A good agent can be the foundation of your real estate team An agent can help you find a home that meets your needs, negotiate for that home on your behalf, supervise property inspections, and coordinate the closing Agents often have useful leads for mortgage loans A good agent s negotiating skills and knowledge of property values can save you thousands of dollars Some people think that good agent is a contradiction in terms These folks tell you that all agents have a hidden agenda: to make people buy more expensive homes than they can afford in order to fatten agents commission checks Some agents may try to pressure you to buy sooner rather than later (and to pay more than you should) to fatten their own commissions And unfortunately, many well-intentioned-but-inept agents are also out there In the following sections, we explain how to avoid the bad agents and how to sift through the masses of mediocre agents in order to narrow the field down to good agents who are worthy of their commissions