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    The First Time Homebuyer Book
    The First Time Homebuyer Book
    The First Time Homebuyer Book
    Ebook155 pages2 hours

    The First Time Homebuyer Book

    By Michael Wolf, GRI

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    About this ebook

    The First Time Homebuyer Book offers you everything you need to know to help you buy your first place.

    The First Time Homebuyer Book will help make the largest purchase of your life as simple as possible. Buying a home today can be like break-dancing in a minefield – one wrong move, and the whole thing can blow up in your face. After reading this book, you will be able to grace your way into your first home without the risk of everything going to pieces.

    Coming from the standpoint of a Professional Realtor that works everyday with first time homebuyers, this book provides an accurate and realistic account to give you the best perspective as you embark down the path of homeownership. This is not a dummy-book! This book is filled with real world accounts of great examples of what to do and what not to do. This book will guide you through each and every step of the homebuying process, from the minute you decide on buying a home all the way to the close of escrow. The process is part of the adventure! This is the largest purchase of your life, and a good education will reduce stress and make the process fun, exciting and successful!

    The First Time Homebuyer Book will help assist you with finding a great loan officer or lender and the most important things about loans and what questions to ask. It will get you clued in on the most common aspects of the loan process and what's the best loan for you. The book will get you educated on how to find the best Realtor to help you with your purchase and what are the most important things to look for and ask. You will learn the differences between the common property sale types out there, and how to make offers to your best advantage. Essentially, you will learn what I wish I knew when I purchased my first home. The book provides a wealth of tips and reminders that only a seasoned real estate professional could provide. As a bonus, the book provides several online resources, including how to get linked up with a great Realtor and lender if you need one, how to improve your credit score, examples of the most common documents, important checklists, and the most common mistakes a first time home buyer makes. This book does it all!

    You should be able to fall in love with your new home. When purchased right, there is no remorse. It's an amazing feeling, and a big step in the right direction. If you are reading this, you have picked up the absolute best book to ensure your success the first time around.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMichael Wolf, GRI
    Release dateFeb 9, 2011
    ISBN9781452444475
    The First Time Homebuyer Book
    Author

    Michael Wolf, GRI

    For over a decade I've been blessed to live my passion as a professional Realtor helping my clients buy, sell and invest in real estate. Along with my wife Jessica, I co-founded The Wolf Real Estate Group in 2006. Together, it has been our commitment to support our clients with accurate information and knowledge that will help them make good choices with their investments. In working with many of our first-time home buyers, I was compelled to help offer them the information they need to make good decisions and avoid pitfalls when buying their first home. So, in 2010, I published "The First Time Homebuyer Book" to help guide first time homebuyers with the biggest purchase decision of their lives. Over the years, it has become apparent that learning how to protect and grow that investment can be challenging as well. My latest book, "The First Time Home Investor Book" helps homeowners and investors grow their wealth through investment real estate. It is created to share investment information and offer the critically important steps to becoming financially independent for the first time investor. Writing these books for our clients and serving on multiple committees within the local San Diego Association of Realtors is important to me; it offers my wife and I the opportunity to give back to my community and usher in a fresh and positive perspectives for the future of Real Estate. It is so rewarding to empower my clients and offer my expertise and knowledge to them as they build their financial futures. I'm committed to supporting them in all aspects of real estate sales, structuring investments and representing all my buyers and sellers with their residential and investment properties. I believe our future is bright and I am passionate about doing my part to empower people one relationship at a time Our team represents a passion for service and follow up that cannot be out done. contact Mike at: [email protected] or check out their website: ( http://www.mikeandjessica.net ) or the book's website: ( http://www.thefirsttimehomeinvestorbook.com ) or (www.thefirsttimehomebuyerbook.com)

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      Book preview

      The First Time Homebuyer Book - Michael Wolf, GRI

      Part 1

      CHAPTER 1

      Finding the Best Lender

      HAVING A GREAT LENDER ON YOUR SIDE MAKES YOU ENTIRE experience so much easier. Your most important people in your real estate transaction are your agent and your loan broker. Make sure that both of them are AWESOME!

      If I came to the realization today that it was time for me to buy a home, the first thing I would do is find a lender I could trust. Any time I talk with new clients or referrals, one of the first couple of questions I ask is whether they have been prequalified or preapproved by a lender.

      There’s a difference between prequalification and preapproval. These terms get thrown around a lot, and they are not the same. Between the two, preapproval is better. Prequalification is like telling a loan officer about your financial situation over the phone to see whether things jive with what you are trying to accomplish. Preapproval is a full-blown credit check with verification of your assets and income. Because people always embellish their personal situation, a prequalification may not be accurate or offer much insight. It’s like asking a lender, If I make about this much, and I have this credit score, and I am looking to get a loan for so many dollars, do you think I can get the loan? This is kind of ridiculous: there’s no reason for the lender not to say Of course! just to get you in the office! For these reasons and more, preapproval is the way to go; the numbers never lie when they look at your financials and check your credit, and when you are preapproved by a trustworthy lender, you can be confident that you will be able to get a loan.

      The best lenders are the ones that you are referred to. TV commercials and lenders you find on the web are NOT COOL! These are shady lenders that may sell your information to other sources, or get you with a teaser rate that’s only available for perfect borrowers with spotless credit, who make way more money than you. On the other hand, your brother’s friend’s uncle that does loans part-time from his home office doesn’t fit the optimal description of a good loan officer either! It all comes down to who you know, or who you can get connected with.

      When looking for a good loan officer, there are a couple sources to consider. You could ask your Realtor for referrals. In fact, a professional agent that works with lenders every day is the BEST person to ask for a referral to a lender. We Realtors know which lenders do their job the best, and which to avoid. If one of your friends or family members just closed a transaction and had a positive experience with a lender or loan officer, this would also be a terrific place to start.

      BONUS: At the end of this chapter, I will list the most important questions you will want to ask when you meet with a potential loan officer.

      Banks vs. Brokers

      There are two very different kinds of loan officers: mortgage bankers and mortgage brokers. Put simply, a mortgage banker works at a bank that offers loans, while a mortgage broker finds a loan from one of several banks. There are benefits to each, and neither way is clearly better than the other: it all comes down to personal preference.

      To go with a mortgage banker, walk into the bank and say to the banker, Hey Mr. Banker, I would like to apply for a home loan! The banker will sit you down, and offer whatever loans that particular bank is offering at that particular time. The Banker might say, Do you want Loan A, Loan B or Loan C? By contrast, a brokerage has dozens and dozens of relationships with banks, putting a lot of options at its disposal. After all, every borrower is different, and every bank offers different guidelines for lending. If you are self-employed, certain banks might not offer you a good loan. Similarly, maybe you are a teacher or government worker or in the military; some mortgage brokers specialize in these professions and would do a much better job than a typical big bank loan. A good mortgage broker will be able to find a solution (a good loan that fits) for most borrower types. Other issues that would cause a borrower to need to look elsewhere than the largest banks are if you have a smaller than average down payment, less than stellar credit, or the need for a larger allowance for closing costs, or if you are financing a condo that has issues with the HOA (Home Owners Association), among many, many others. The list of things that lenders scrutinize changes weekly. This really emphasizes the point that, no matter whether you use a bank or a broker, the person you actually deal with must KNOW HIS OR HER STUFF INSIDE AND OUT. Research, ask questions, test them, and pick the best person. May the best and most experienced loan person win your business!

      Is there a difference in costs between a mortgage bank and mortgage broker? Yes. For the most part, using a mortgage broker tends to be a bit more expensive in terms of the closing costs for your loan. Why? When you go with a brokerage as opposed to a big bank, your loan officer has a greater need to make a good impression and establish a relationship with you. He (or she) wants to do a job deserving of any referrals you may send over after a successful transaction. Your loan officer can be contacted directly, and you will establish a personal rapport and business relationship together. He will hold your hand the entire way throughout the transaction. Contrast this with a bigger bank, where you will still have a loan officer, but where the personal touch can sometimes erode. Of course, there are wonderful loan officers at the larger banks, but you should expect to get a bit more hand holding when you work with a broker. This being the case, they typically get compensated more for dealing with you on a more frequent basis.

      Sometimes the big banks offer deals and incentives a broker just can’t match. In order to get more loans closed, a big bank can give better deals, perhaps waiving the closing costs or offering rates that are not profitable to a smaller mortgage broker. Be savvy, ask a lot of questions, and do your homework! I love to talk, and I love it when my clients call me with questions about these sorts of offers!

      Banks and brokers both have loan officers working for them. Your job is to make sure you get the warm and fuzzy feeling with your loan officer when you meet initially, and at the same time stay clear-headed and focused. Your loan officer can literally make or break your deal, so make the right decision as to who will get your business.

      There’s one more factor, and you can take this one to the bank (pun intended). Sometimes it’s not the best rate, but the best fit that you should be looking for. Some lenders just listen and take your order, without offering any alternatives. For example, some people go into the bank deadset on a 30-year mortgage even if they’re just planning on being in the home for four or five years, as if 30-year fixed rate mortgages were the ONLY way to finance a property. This is certainly not the case. As I write this book, 30-year rates are hovering around 4.5%, but the 5/1 Adjustable Rate Mortgages are in the 3% range! This can be a lot of savings for a loan that is a better fit for the borrower. Also, if or when you shop around, please remember that rates are changing constantly. Volatility has been and will continue to be high, so if you got a quote from Lender A on Monday for 4.5% and got a quote from Lender B on Friday and it was 4.375%, you would think it would be a no brainer on who to go with, however, the rates adjusted downward from Monday to Friday, and that’s why Lender B’s rate is lower. The key difference is in the fees and lender costs that one lender charges over another. Although we will cover this more in depth later on, it’s something important to keep in mind. Be mindful and ask questions, and be a savvy borrower. At the end of the day, you have a lot of people who are there to help, but you are responsible for making sure you get a beneficial outcome.

      I had one client who categorically refused to use a mortgage broker. He swore it would cost too much! He went into a big national bank and spoke to someone who seemed to be the loan guy at the bank. It turns out the fellow he talked to was some banking specialist, not a loan professional in any way. When the time came for my client to lock in his loan rate, I asked the banking specialist what the rates were for that day, and he said he did not know! When you trust your business to a bank, you expect to work with someone who at least knows something so rudimentary as the going mortgage rate for the day. Worse, my client’s file was sent all over the country in the bank’s computer system, from Florida to Los Angeles, at various points in the process. About a dozen people touched his file, and he had very little ability to call and ask questions of any one person familiar with his file. This was frustrating and stressful, and it could have been avoided had my client made sure to work with a loan officer or mortgage professional from start to finish. So no matter where you go or who you work with, make sure that the one person who will be handling your file from beginning to end is a genuine loan officer. This way you have one person to call the entire

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