Here’s a general guideline for a home purchase:

1. Get pre-approved with a lender for a mortgage, if you’re going to need one.

2. Go house hunting! This is where you create your list of Wants and Needs, until you find the house you must have!

3. Write a sales contract to purchase that property. The contract will contain all of the details for financing, closing date, home inspection, appraisal, and other contingencies.

4. Once your contract has been accepted by the seller, you’ll have a ratified contract! Now the time clock starts…

5. Lock-in your loan with a lender. Complete any paperwork required.

6. Complete your home inspection, termite inspection, radon test, or any other inspection of the property. If there are repairs you’d like done by the seller, this is when you ask them to either fix a list of items or give you a credit so you can fix them. If you can’t agree to terms, you can either choose to move on or you can void. You can’t void on a termite, but you can void on the home inspection or radon. This is your contract out #1.

7. An appraisal will have been ordered by your lender. We hope the appraisal comes in at least at sales contract price, but if it doesn’t, you’ll have the opportunity to re-negotiate with the seller. If you can’t agree to terms if the appraisal is low (and you must at least TRY), you can void. I haven’t seen many low appraisals lately, but that also depends on how much you’ve offered to buy the property for.

8. If there’s a condo or homeowners association, you’ll have 3 days to review the bylaws from the time you receive them (if may take up to 2 weeks after ratification to receive these). You can void for ANY reason on this. This is out #2.

9. Once all of your contingencies are completed, you’re locked into the contract and will proceed to the specified settlement date.

10. Within a few days or the day of closing, you’ll perform a final walk-through of the property. Presumably the seller has moved out at this point, if the house wasn’t vacant before. This walk-through is to make sure nothing was damaged or removed and you’ll be buying the property in the condition you expected. We’ll also check to make sure all of the appliances are still working.

11. Closing day! Once you’ve signed 1,000 papers from the County and your lender, forked over your check for your down payment and closings costs, you’ll get the keys to the house and you’ll officially be a homeowner!

That’s the basic outline for buying a property in Virginia. Obviously certain transactions will have other steps, for example short sales, foreclosures, new construction, or multiple offer situations. A good agent will prepare you for each one! If you have questions, just ask!

Search Ingleside Townhomes for Sale

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1. Are you a full-time Realtor(R)? Does this person have another full-time job, and therefore can only work on selling your house after 5pm or on weekends? You want someone who does this all day long and will devote their time to selling your home! A full-time Realtor(R) also likely has a better pulse on what’s going on in the market and new advances made in selling/exposing/marketing your property.

2. How Many Homes Did You Sell Last Year? Ask the number of transactions, that’s more telling than volume. In our area, someone could have sold $20M in real estate, but only 4 deals. Did they sell more than 10? More than 20? Is it just the person or is there a team behind them? Who actually does the selling?

3. What’s Your Marketing Plan? Many agents have a checklist they follow to market your property. The most important one these days is internet advertising. Where will it appear? How many sites will the listing syndicate to? There are 1,000s of places that your property can appear, but it only takes 1 set of eyes and 1 buyer to sell it.

4. How Many Properties Like This Have You Sold? Ask for a list of all of the homes they’ve sold. Do they sell mostly in Arlington? If you’re interviewing a Price Williams agent for an Arlington listing, you may be barking up the wrong tree.

5. How Long Have You Been in the Business? This is two-fold, I think you want an agent with experience, but you don’t want someone newly licensed or someone who is in their 80th year selling real estate. New agents aren’t experienced enough yet to handle the unknowns in a transaction, while some seasoned agents are used to the way things used to be. Real estate is a constantly evolving business and you need to be able to adapt to what buyers are looking for and ways they’re finding their new homes.

If you’re thinking selling, please contact me. I’m happy to answer these and any other questions you may have!

-Contract accepted in writing, all parties agree to all terms in writing. This is known as ratification. Part of that agreement will specify an agreed upon closing day.

-Home Inspection to take place X days from ratification (normal timelines are usually 7-10 days)

-Radon Test (if appl) to take place X days from ratification (normal timelines are usually 7-10 days)

-Appraisal to be completed within X days from ratification (Conventional financing is usually 21 days, FHA/VA can be until the time of closing, although they’re usually returned before then)

-HOA/Condo Resale Package Review to be completed within 3 days of RECEIPT (not necessarily ratification since these need to be ordered from the management company)

-Termite Inspection to be completed within 30 days of closing

-Any other contingency written into the contract will have hard dates from which they need to be completed

Once you’ve passed all of these contingencies, it’s a waiting game until closing.

Search Virginia Square Townhomes for Sale

• 67 rental apartments
• Underground Garage
• Rooftop Terrace
• Resident Lounge
• Fitness Center

Construction is expected to be completed in December 2012. The property address is 1200 N Rolfe St, Arlington, VA 22209.

Future Site Rendition

If you bought:

• Your mortgage company will send you a 1098, which you’ll use to deduct the interest paid in 2011. It will NOT include any prepaid interest, origination fees, etc. that you paid as part of your closing costs. They ARE deductible, but you must remember to take them from your HUD1.
• If the property was an investment, remember to show your tax preparer any prepaid condo/HOA fees or taxes shown on your HUD1.
• Also for investment properties, don’t forget to save all of those receipts for any work you did on the property.
• If you sold stocks or bonds to use as your down-payment, don’t forget to tell your tax preparer about those as well, although you should get a statement from the financial institution you went through.

If you sold:

• If this home was your primary residence for at least 2 years, you’ll most likely be exempt from paying taxes on your Capital Gains (up to $250k if you’re single, or up to $500k if you’re married). Make sure when you show the sale price to your tax preparer, you also show them how much you paid.
• Bring your HUD1 closing statement with you to show any taxes paid as a proration or credit to the purchaser, or any other costs associated with selling.
• If this was an investment, you’ll also have to consider depreciation during the length of which you owned the home when trying to calculate taxes owed on the sale.

All of my clients who bought or sold with me last year received a courtesy copy of their HUD1 the second week of January. If you can’t find yours, try contacting your agent or the title company who did your closing. It’s really important to have that on hand when doing your taxes! Remember though, I’m not a CPA, so double check with your tax preparer on any other deductions I have missed (I am sure there are some I don’t know since the tax laws are always changing!!) You can read more from a CPA:  Homeowners Tax Tips.

Where: The “affordable” price range in Arlington spans from $300k – $650k-ish. Basically anything in that price range is flying off the market, if it’s:

a) Priced correctly
b) In a good location
c)  The only property of that type (i.e. a 1 bedroom in Clarendon)
d) In good condition

What: Condos are in high demand but low supply, there are nearly ZERO townhomes on the market, which means that as soon as either of these property types are listed for sale, they’re generating interest from every buyer who is waiting for something to become available. You’re going to be competing for the property, so make up your mind quickly if you want to make an offer.

How: My most recent experienced with multiple offers (which happened yesterday) was a condo in Ballston that got 5 offers the first 2 days it was on the market…the winning bid went $15k over asking AND did not include ANY contingencies in their contract (meaning no inspection, no appraisal, no nothing!). Reminiscent of 2005, isn’t it? While I don’t think we’ll return to that as standard practice, things like contingencies and down payment will start making a bigger difference, in addition to price (of course).

Tips to Win:
1) Put a larger deposit with your offer. If you have no plans on getting cold feet or defaulting on the contract, it’ll be a credit to you at closing anyway, but sellers feel “safer” when they know you have a lot of money on the line to show up a closing.
2) Do everything you can to make inspections and contingencies short. A 4-day home inspection period is much less risky for a seller than a 10-day period. They know you’ll have to make up your mind quickly if the condition is something you’re willing to accept, so they lose less time off the market in the event you void.
3) Know that if you’re doing an FHA loan, sellers are most likely going to pick a buyer with a larger down payment. Reasons for that are two-fold: first, you’re putting down 3.5% and likely don’t have much more cash if something goes wrong (i.e. a low appraisal or a long list of inspection repairs). The second is the length of time for an appraisal, the contingency on an FHA (and VA) contract runs the length of the contract up until closing day. A conventional loan  usually has only 21 days for an appraisal, again limiting the length of time a seller is in limbo.
4) Find out what the ideal timeframe for a seller is for closing. Are they moving ASAP and therefore want to close ASAP? Do they need 60 days to find a new home? Being flexible on closing will give you a bigger advantage if they’re not going to have to pay an extra mortgage payment while the place is unoccupied, or you can give them extra time to figure out where they’re going.
5) If you put your best offer on the table, you do everything within your means and it still doesn’t get you the place…move on. It just wasn’t meant to be and something better will come along. I promise!

If you’re reading this and thinking you want to explore putting your home on the market, call me! Find out what your Arlington home is worth. 

• Decrease in short sales and foreclosures: 2011 market share was 7.7%, down from 9.9% in 2010
• Fewer closed sales: Down 10.3%
• Fewer new listings: Down 9.1%
• Increase in Days on the Market: 61 from 55 (surprising given the decrease in inventory)
• Increase of % sold compared to Original List Price: 95.8% up from 95.6% in 2010
• ….drumroll please…..Median Sale Price for Closed Sales: UP 3.6% (2010 prices were up 4.4% from 2009) so back to back years of increases

Remember, these are overall County statistics for the year. Based on your property type and location, the numbers will be different (some much better, some worse).