The other day, I ran into someone I hadn’t seen in a while. She had just moved back into town, so I asked here where she was living. She looked at me sheepishly and said “I bought a house. I was going to call you but it was new construction and I didn’t think I needed to and the whole experience was awful and I really wish I’d called you first.” A lot of people think they don’t need a real ... Read More

So you've found it. It's the right house. It's the one you want. It's home. So how do you go about making it yours? Once you've decided on the house you want to buy, your agent will prepare an offer. "Making an offer" isn't as simple as having your agent call their agent and say "We'll give you 400K for it." No, that would be much too simple. What you will be preparing is in reality much more than an "offer." ... Read More

There’s a saying in the real estate world that “buyers are liars.” It’s not that buyers walk in and deliberately tell lies to their real estate agents. It’s more that what buyers think they want in a house and what they actually wind up wanting are often two very different things. Case in point: my brother, whom I love very much and who is definitely not a liar. He wanted to buy a house. A house, as in “detached ... Read More

If anything is going to go wrong in a home purchase, it's probably going to have something to do with the loan. Borrowing money to buy property in today's environment is very, very complicated. For your sake, for the sake of your realtor and the sake of everyone's sanity, please choose a good, reliable loan officer with a verifiable track record of successful closings and happy customers. In today's climate, a bad or lazy or irresponsible loan officer can ... Read More