Items to Negotiate When Buying Your Home

So, you think you got the hard part out of the way when you were able to find a home to buy, in your price range and location, and it’s either a new home or quality home that is perfect for you.  However, before you hand over your precious investment money, there are several items to negotiate that you are going to want to address in the offer that you make on your new home.

Financing

In order to make you a more “quality buyer,” you are going to want to have a very good idea as to how much home you can afford.  Before you ever start your home buying process, you should make sure that your income and credit are in order, and you should meet with a lender in order to get a

lender commitment letter to use in making the offer on your home.  This letter shows the seller of the home and the Realtor or Realtors involved that you are a real buyer with financial backing who will be able to close on the home in a reasonable time period with minimal hassle.  This will make you a solid prospect, and you may be able to use this to beat out any other interested bids or prospects on the home.

Inspections, Repairs, & a Home Warranty

Unless the home that you are buying is an “as is” purchase, where you are taking the home without any changes, you will want to make sure you get a home inspection.  For the sake of expediency, you may want to put a time limit on the amount of time a seller has to get an inspector and make the inspection of the home. If there are repairs or major systems that have issues, you will want to negotiate the cost of these repairs off of the seller’s price or have the seller repair them before closing.  If the home passes inspection but is an older home or has questionable systems or appliances that will potentially bread down quickly, you can ask the seller to provide a home warranty on the home as part of the items to negotiate.

Closing Date

The sooner that you offer to close on the home, the better as far as any motivated seller can attest.  However, there will be times when a seller is selling and trying to move into another home and may be “stuck” in between the two homes during your home buying process.  In order to make you a

“better buyer,” you can offer a short-term lease back as part of your offer which gives you a small break on the purchase price and gives the seller more flexibility in their moving timeline.  Then you and the seller can agree on a fixed closing date that works for both, making you an attractive buyer with your willingness to negotiate to fit their lifestyle.

Closing Costs

In most of the items to negotiate above, you as the buyer are making yourself totally flexible and available to the seller, but don’t forget to take care of you.  If possible, you should ask that the seller help you pay some of the closing costs associated with your home purchase.  They may stick firmly to their selling price, but some sellers will be willing to give a little if they are getting a solid home buyer prospect who will close quickly and work with them on repairs of the home.  Closing costs can add up with the abstract of title, title insurance, deposits into escrow – prorated taxes and insurance – and your loan origination fees, so definitely try to negotiate these costs to get the seller to step up for some of them.  Remember, all the seller can say is “no,” so it doesn’t hurt to ask!

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