Common Cents Buying Process ™
Numbers don’t lie, people do.
1. It All Starts With Why?
It’s Your Money – Invest it Wisely
Why are you considering buying a property? Buying a home is an emotional and financial investment. It’s a process, not an event, so understanding your goals is essential.
Are you a first-time home buyer? Are you relocating, upgrading, downgrading or considering buying a cash-flow positive investment property? Is a fixer-upper an option?
Our Common Cents Buying Process™ is designed to ask you smart questions that empower you with knowledge and financial understanding involved in purchasing real estate. This discovery process ensures that you balance your lifestyle needs and make a smart financial decision.
2. Understand Your Buying Power: Pre-Approval
It is critical in today’s tight lending market to talk to a lender and get pre-approved for a loan in the early stage (before we tour) of your home buying effort. We can help connect you with a reputable lender, or you can use your own, but obtaining a pre-approval letter will help you understand your buying power.
Remember, just because you CAN afford it doesn’t mean you SHOULD buy it.
Obtaining a pre-approval letter upfront will help you understand how much you can spend, give you an accurate idea of your monthly payment, and submitting the letter with a contract for a home is a typical requirement asked for by the seller.
3. Search Austin Homes using the SmartSearch™ Approach
Our Smart Home Search™ tool gives you online access to the same powerful search engine used by an Austin Realtor – in real-time!
This access allows you to see ALL available listings in real-time: condos, homes, multi-family, and land. You can search the entire list of Austin homes for sale in any neighborhood around Austin or narrow your search to either Austin condos or Austin homes.
Too busy to search or just getting started? No problem, sign up for SmartAlerts™ and receive emails whenever a new listing matches your search criteria.
4. Tour Properties with a Realtor
There is so much more to hiring an Austin Realtor besides getting access to houses and a “chauffeur” to show you around.
Top 3 Reasons to use our Realtors
1. Representation
Unless you are buying a property that is for sale by owner, the seller has professional representation on their side. By negotiating directly with the sellers agent you are putting yourself at a severe disadvantage since their agent is legally bound to share everything you tell them in order to get the best deal for their client. You wouldn’t go into a courtroom without a lawyer, so why risk the biggest purchase in your life in buying a home without representation.
2. Information
Pricing is an art and science and the only way to determine market value (what the market is willing to pay) is to analyze the prices at which similar homes recently sold in the same neighborhood, commonly referred to as a Comparative Market Analysis, or Comps for short. While there are hundreds of online resources for finding homes for sale, there are no better consumer websites that provide home sales data and true comps in the Austin than using a Realtor. Our membership with the local Austin Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service gives us access to the largest database of sold history available to consumers.
3. Experience
Most people buy a home once every 5-10 years. Our Realtors work with dozens of buyers every month, so the knowledge they gained from working with so many clients is invaluable when it comes to helping you pick the right house, on the right street, in the right neighborhood.
5. The ONE Process™: Offer + Negotiate + Evaluate = Closing
Find + Offer = Homework!
Once we find the, “one,” the real fun begins. First, we help you determine an offer price. Second, we negotiate and evaluate with the selling party before and during the process ensuring you get the best deal possible.
What are you waiting for? Click here to get in touch.