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Don't we all just love a good sale? Often it means being able to actually purchase something that we have always desired which was just out of our financial reach. That's sort of what we have in the Long Beach real estate market today. The ability to purchase a home which, up until now, has been beyond our financial reach. That doesn't mean that we can acquire any home for any price; it does mean that homes in Long Beach are way more affordable now than they have been in many years.
Once you realize that you can indeed purchase a home, the next step is to contact your lender and become pre-approved. It is smart to become pre-approved before you begin your search for a couple of very important reasons:
- You will not be shopping above your means.
- You will be prepared to write and submit an offer.
By now you have probably been sitting up late at night cruising the many home search sites, looking at pictures, videos, neighborhoods, prices and square footage until your eyes are rolling up into your head. A couple of short easy pointers here:
- Almost all of the larger search sites do NOT provide you with the entire MLS - they are not brokers. They can only provide you with the properties that a few of the brokerages have uploaded to them. Their information does not refresh often, their properties are often dated. Prices have changed, properties have sold or are no longer on the market, etc... They do have good neighborhood statistics, the information on them is quasi reliable.
- You can search the entire Long Beach and Southern California MLS here for free - I can do that, I am a licensed Realtor®. Updated several times a day, directly from the same MLS that we Realtors® use, which contains all available properties, with current information. Your local Realtor® can provide you with tons of neighborhood information and statistics.
So you have located a few homes that you would like to see. You have contacted your local Long Beach Realtor®, you have your pre-approval in hand and are ready to go. Congratulations!
Its Saturday and you have appointments to view 5 homes within your price range today. You are excited and apprehensive all at the same time as you pull up in front of the very first home you are going to see.
- 1. This one is in the Lakewood Plaza neighborhood of Long Beach. It's appealing to you because of the Cubberley School. You are planning a family and want a top notch, grammar school for your future children. Not bad, has curb appeal, nice flowers out front, its cheery, inviting and on a quiet tree lined street. As you enter the home the smell of cat urine wafts toward you. You run out of exit the home, whew!!! Next!
- 2. The next home you view is just 2 blocks away, it too is a nice looking home with excellent landscaping and looks very well cared for. You enter the home, it is nice! Gleaming wood floors shine up at you as you enter, the walls are freshly painted and the home is as neat as a pin. Candles are burning and the home smells yummy. This is more like it! Nice backyard, 2 car garage with a long driveway, but the Master Bedroom is very small, your furniture will not fit and you do not have the after purchase money to enlarge it or to unnecessarily purchase new furniture. Otherwise this home would be perfect. Next!
- 3. Driving over to the California Heights Historic District to view the next few homes. This is a great neighborhood, the future children can walk to Longfellow, another excellent Elementary School. This home is a 3 bedroom, historic Spanish charmer on a corner lot and it is drop dead gorgeous! It has it all! Curb appeal, perfect landscaping, gleaming hardwood floors, coved ceilings, remodeled kitchen and baths, an already extended Master, a fireplace, newer copper plumbing, upgraded electric a newer roof and a fantastic partially covered back patio with built in BBQ and a firepit. It's love at first site! Your adrenaline starts to pump, you break out into a light sweat, you want this home, you want to write an offer right away before somebody else takes it from you. This home isn't going to require any kind of a large cash outlay for many, many years. But, there are 2 more homes to see today. If I can afford a house this nice, I should keep looking, I can probably find one even nicer than this. Hmmmm.....
- 4. Another California Heights Historic Home, this one is a 2 story Craftsman, it has great bones, has seen some wear so it needs at least cosmetic upgrading. The kitchen and baths look like they are from the 40's and are tired, the plumbing is old, the electric has been partially upgraded, the roof was replaced - 25 years ago. This home will be devastatingly beautiful once it is renovated, however, that could cost a lot of after purchase dollars and you can't get your mind off of that last home you saw. You are already envisioning yourself raising your family there.
- 5. This home is in the Belmont Heights neighborhood of Long Beach. Not a neighborhood that you thought you could afford to live in, but there are a few foreclosures, this one is in your price range and is walking distance to the beach. Cute home, a California Bungalow; it looks a little small from the front, you like the picket fence, the front porch and the tree lined block. The home is carpeted throughout; yes there are wood floors underneath but the seller doesn't know what condition they are in, that could be a large unexpected expense after purchase. The kitchen has been poorly remodeled - you hate it, the baths have not been remodeled. You have that corner house in Cal Heights in your head and its not going away. Lets talk about the corner house in Cal Heights...
Heading out to the car your Realtor® calls the listing agent to inquire about the home. While it has been on the market for about 30 days with one full price offer that didn't pan out, and no price reductions, the agent informs you that there are several buyers considering writing an offer, but would love to see an offer from you.
You are sweating again, don't know if you should write right away or go home and sleep on it. Your agent offers you a solution. Why not go ahead, check the comparables and write the offer right away, leave it with her overnight and let her know in the morning. At that time she will either fax it or not according to your wishes. You think that is a great idea. The morning arrives and the listing agent has received 2 other offers on the California Heights home you now want very badly. Eeeek, you are in a multiple offer situation!
The listing agent informed your Realtor® that all offers are at or near listing price, one offer is strong, one is not. You have a 20% down payment, excellent FICO scores, have written a full price offer, but are worried that you may have asked for too much in closing costs. You instruct your agent to build the closing costs onto the top of the price, fax the changes back to them and send the offer to the listing agent for consideration, hoping that it will be enough. You have not only enclosed a pre-aproval, your lender follows up with a call and informs the listing agent that you have a lock in letter and a loan commitment. This is strong! To the buyer and seller it means there will be no surprises on the loan, short of a lender going out of business or eliminating a loan progam (always possible these days).
This is a strong position for you to be in, few buyers are this prepared. You also have a great Realtor® representing you who is well known in the Realtor community. Heck, the California Association of Realtors invited her to participate in a 4 person round-table which appeared as a 5 page spread in the June/July 2008 issue of California Realtor Magazine and on the CAR.org website; and she just got back from speaking at Inman Connect, a national real estate/tech/blogging seminar in San Francisco. Yeah, she knows what she is doing.
So you sumit your offer and you wait? No, your Realtor has shortened the response time-frame and has insisted on a response by the end of the next business day. Mid day you receive a counter offer. The seller really wants to keep her washer/dryer and the contingency timeframe is shortened from 17 to 12 days, there are no other terms on it and most importantly, the multiple offer box is not checked. This means that once you sign and return it, you have an accepted offer. You sign it, accepting the terms and return it immediately. You just went into escrow!
When seeking homes or condos in Long Beach neighborhoods nobody knows the areas better than your Long Beach Realtor. Search Long Beach Homes for sale and consult your Realtor to find out which Long Beach neighborhoods best suit your specific needs.
If you are thinking about purchasing a home in Long Beach, it would be my pleasure to represent you.
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