Tag: real estate

If you are preparing to put your home on the market, it might not make sense to complete any big home improvement projects. Once you have met with your realtor and are convinced there aren’t any major repairs to make, consider doing some easy refurbishing yourself to make your home more appealing to buyers. These updates shouldn’t take long to accomplish, and they won’t break the bank.

The First Impression:  Start with the first thing potential buyers will see online, driving by, or coming to a showing – your home’s curb appeal. Check all your landscaping and keep your grass cut. Clear your yard of dead plants, weeds, sticks, and leaves. Trim the trees and the bushes and consider adding a few bags of dark mulch around them. If your home has a front porch, adding a couple of pots of seasonal flowers on the front porch can make a huge difference. Update and possibly remove any accessories such as a doormat, wreath, or rug.

The Front Door: A little sanding, a fresh coat or two of paint, clean or paint the trim, and put on a new doorknob. A knocker will add some charm. Fix or replace any exterior lighting that needs some help.

Bathrooms and Kitchen: Outdated lighting and plumbing fixtures can drag down the entire vibe of a home. But by replacing the old fixtures with either timeless or trendy ones, you breathe fresh life into the space. If your cabinets have old and tired hardware, replace them for a quick, easy, and cheap facelift. Regrout and replace chipped tiles. This may take some extra elbow grease but will make your tile look new and give it a fresh look that buyers love.

Fresh Paint: Brighten up your home with a new coat of paint in a color palette that will appeal to today’s buyers. Doing this will help in covering up stains, marks, scratches, and any odors.  Choose a warm neutral color to appeal to the widest range of buyers. Talk to your realtor for advice on what is currently popular. Painting can be done on a weekend and absolutely won’t break the bank.

Flooring:  A huge selling point for potential homebuyers. Remember that odors linger especially in rugs and carpets and worn, dirty, or badly colored carpeting can turn a buyer off in seconds. If you have good hardwood floors, consider ripping out the carpet and exposing the wood. If that isn’t an option, your realtor should have recommendations on who or what to use to bring life into your carpeting – replacing or deep cleaning it.

Window Treatment: Get rid of any town window shades, dreary curtains, bent mini-blinds, and dusty old drapery. Remove and replace with simple white mini-blinds or wood blinds. Easy fix and refresh that can be done in a day.

The Bottom Line:  Adding any or all of these updates can easily and cheaply get your home ready to sell with confidence.  If you want to sell your home as quickly as possible you’ve got to put your best foot forward for potential buyers, especially those who come in to take a physical walk-through of the property.

Does the seller have the legal right to sell this home? Is the home’s title free of judgments, liens, or bankruptcies that would prevent the seller from transferring a clear title to the buyer? How can you be certain?

Every property has a history of owners.  That history is called an ownership chain, or more often, a title chain.  When a link in the chain has a problem, it’s called a title defect, or a cloud on the title. No matter how small the problem is, any title issue must be resolved in order to offer a clear title to the buyer.

When purchasing a home, you may view title insurance as an unnecessary cost.  However, title insurance provides protection for both the seller and the buyer against title defects. Title insurance, as the name implies, insures against property title defects or ownership defects.  Some title problems may not become apparent for years. Others can hinder the sale of your home, and may even limit who you can sell your home to.

The title company will examine public records of the home being sold, sometimes going back 50 years or more, to look for past deeds, wills, trusts, divorce decrees, bankruptcy filings, court judgments, and tax records that may be defective or outstanding. The results of the search will be compiled into a preliminary title report that will be given to the buyer, seller, real estate agent, lender, and attorney involved in the sale.

Common Issues

PUBLIC RECORDS: Mistakes and errors happen but you do not want it affecting your home. The errors can be disastrous and cause you an undue financial burden to resolve. Simple clerical or filing errors could affect the deed or survey of your property.

UNKNOWN LIENS: Prior owners of your property may have left unpaid bills. And, even though the former debt is not your own, banks or other financing companies can place liens on your property for unpaid debts even after you have closed on the sale. This is an especially worrisome issue with distressed properties.

ILLEGAL DEEDS: While the chain of title on your property may appear perfectly sound, it’s possible that a prior deed was made by an undocumented immigrant, a minor, a person of unsound mind, or one who is reported single but in actuality married. These instances may affect the enforceability of prior deeds, affecting prior (and possibly present) ownership.

MISSING HEIRS: When a person dies, the ownership of their home may fall to their heirs or those named within their will. However, those heirs are sometimes missing or unknown at the time of death. Other times, family members may contest the will for their own property rights. These scenarios – which can happen long after you have purchased the property – may affect your rights to the property.

FORGERIES: Unfortunately, we don’t live in a completely honest world. Sometimes forged or fabricated documents that affect property ownership are filed within public records, obscuring the rightful ownership of the property. Once these forgeries come to light, your rights to your home may be in jeopardy.

UNDISCOVERED ENCUMBRANCES:  At the time that you purchase your home, you may not know that a third party holds a claim to all or part of your property – due to a former mortgage or lien, or non-financial claims, like restrictions or covenants limiting the use of your property.

UNKNOWN EASEMENTS: You may own your new home and its surrounding land, but an unknown easement may prohibit you from using it as you’d like or could allow government agencies, businesses, or other parties access to all or portions of your property. While usually non-financial issues, easements can still affect your right to enjoy your property.

BOUNDARY/SURVEY DISPUTES: You may have seen several surveys of your property prior to purchasing, however, other surveys may exist that show differing boundaries. Therefore, a neighbor or other party may be able to claim ownership of a portion of your property.

UNDISCOVERED WILL: When a property owner dies with no apparent will or heir, the state may sell his or her assets, including the home. When you purchase such a home, you assume your rights as the owner. However, even years later, the deceased owner’s will may come to light and your rights to the property may be seriously jeopardized.

The Bottom Line: The experts at Title First oversee and perform thousands of closings each year. When using Title First, you can sign confidently on the dotted line knowing that all details of your title transfer and closing are in proper order. We are here to answer any questions you may have about buying or selling a home, and our team will guide you through the entire process.

Closing costs add up to anywhere from 3% to 6% of the purchase price. This means if your home is $400,000 and your closing costs are 4%, you’ll owe $16,000 at closing.

Some examples of costs common during a closing:

• Application fee — The application fee covers the cost of administering the transaction and handling the documentation. 
• Appraisal fee — A licensed appraiser inspects the home to determine its worth. This appraisal fee typically costs a few hundred dollars. 
• Credit report — As part of the due diligence to determine your credit worthiness and determine the interest rate for your loan, the lender will pull your credit report. This fee is rolled into your closing costs. 
• Homeowner’s insurance — Homeowner’s insurance is typically required to protect the home from loss or damage. Up to one year’s worth of insurance is due at the closing. 
• Private mortgage insurance (PMI) — PMI is designed to protect the lender in case you default on your loan. Until you own a certain percentage of the home, private mortgage insurance may be required by your lender. 
• Property taxes — Depending on your location, you may be required to pre-pay 60, 90, or 180 days worth of property taxes when you close on your house.
• Transfer tax — Typically a percentage of the sales price or fair market value of the house, this tax fee is collected and paid when the title passes from the seller to the buyer.
• Underwriting fee — Also known as a loan origination fee, this fee is charged by the lender for preparing the mortgage loan. 
• Title search services: A title search verifies the seller’s legal right to transfer the property to the buyer and flags and liens that may have to be cleared before the sale can be completed.
• Real estate attorney’s fees: It’s customary and advisable (and mandatory, in some jurisdictions) for both buyer and seller to hire attorneys to review sales contracts before a home sale is completed. In more complicated sales—if a home is occupied by tenants at the time of the sale, for instance, or if the sale is contingent on the seller completing certain repairs or improvements—attorneys may play a more active role, crafting contract provisions to protect their client’s interests.
• Agents’ sales commission: Real estate agents representing the buyer and seller typically split a commission of 5% to 6% of the sales price.

The Bottom Line: There are steps you can take to bring down your closing costs:

• Schedule your closing at the end of the month. Part of your closing costs is prepaid interest charges on your mortgage for the remaining days of the calendar month. If you schedule your closing toward the end of the month, you’ll only pay these charges for a few days.
• Ask the seller to cover some of the costs. In a buyer’s market, and/or if your seller is particularly eager to complete the sale, you can ask them to cover some of the closing costs.
• Compare your loan estimate and your final closing disclosure form. Check for inconsistencies and new charges. If something doesn’t look right, bring it to the attention of your lender.