REALTORS: Help Your Buyers Navigate These 5 Gotchas - Real Estate, Updates, News & Tips

REALTORS: Help Your Buyers Navigate These 5 Gotchas

Home shoppers need to be mentally prepared to face some annoying things when purchasing a home. Realtor.com® recently spotlighted some of buyers’ biggest irritations when buying a home. Find a way to get them in the right mindset and not succumb to some of these pesky annoyances that can sometimes cloud their perceptions of achieving the American dream. Irritation number one: The “purchase diet” Saving for a down payment, closing costs, moving expenses, and outfitting your new home can really add up. Those in the market to buy tend to have to get very tight with their finances. Help them keep the big picture in mind of one day being able to move into their own home for all of their financial trade-offs. Irritation number two: Waiting to decorate.  Buyers are often so excited about their new home, and they want to furnish every square inch. But it’s not smart to overspend on furnishings before you move in. “If you make any major purchases on credit, this can impact your credit score and debt-to-income ratio, causing you to no longer qualify for your loan,” warns Cara Ameer, a real estate pro in Ponte Verda, Fla. Irritation number three: The seller leaves stuff behind.  Buyers can become annoyed when they go to move in and find the home hasn’t been totally cleared of the seller’s belongings, and not only that, the home looks like an episode from “Hoarders.” Sellers are to leave the home clean and free of debris. But that doesn’t mean buyers don’t occasionally find half-used bags of potting soil or old milk crates lying around. Irritation number four: Sellers who take too much.  Certain fixtures stay with the home when it’s sold, but that doesn’t stop some sellers from occasionally trying to take even more with them.“I had an angry seller who removed all of the lightbulbs from the house just before closing … and the buyer had to purchase all new lightbulbs for the house,” says Wendy Flynn, a real estate pro with Keller Williams in College Station, Texas. Combat problems and read: The Pain of Fixture Feuds Irritation number five: Not knowing how everything works. After moving in, buyers may realize the sprinkler system and the appliances aren’t so easy to operate. But there’s a way to combat this: “Have your agent coordinate a time where you can meet with the seller prior to closing to go over how everything works, or ask for a list of instructions on how certain things operate in the house,” says Ameer. Source: “7 Most Annoying Things About Buying a Home,” realtor.com(R) (March 7, 2017)

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