Chapter 6. BUYING A HOME

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Chapter 6. BUYING A HOME
Finding the right dwelling at the right price
Protecting your legal and financial rights as a
buyer
A. The Home-Hunting Dilemma - How much?
Where? Appearance? Personal needs and
desires? B. Types of Housing 1. Houses 2.
Condominiums and Cooperatives 3. Mobile
Home 4. Multiple Units (duplexes, etc.)
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C. How to Buy a Dwelling at the Right Price
(See Personal Action Worksheet, Text page 181)
1. Know Your Price Range 2. Using a Real Estate
Agent 3. Timing 4. Looking for the Anxious
Seller 5. Driving a Hard Bargain 6. Knowing
Your Needs 7. Finding Comparable Value
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C. How to Buy a Dwelling at the Right Price,
continued
8. Evaluating the Age of the Dwelling 9.
Understanding Warranties 10. Determining
Financing Costs 11. Estimating Utility Costs
12. Estimating Furnishing Costs 13.
Determining Property Taxes 14. Evaluating
Resale Potential
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D. Making the Purchase E. The Contract 1.
Description of the Property 2. Title and Title
Insurance 3. The Deed 4. Manner of
Payment 5. Closing Date 6. Sellers
Obligations 7. Default and Recourse
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F. The Closing
1. Adjustments and Closing Costs 2. Recording
the Transaction
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TALKING POINTSChapter Six, Number One

• You are negotiating to buy a home. How would you
  react to

• 1. You and the seller have been haggling over
  the price. At first there was a 40,000
  difference. Now the difference is down to
  25,000, and the sellers agent tells you, The
  seller will knock another 5,000 off the price,
  final answer take it or leave it!
• 2. Youve agreed on a price, and the seller then
  tells you that her job transfer has been delayed
  by two months. She wants to stay in the house
  and put off the closing by two months.
• 3. Your firm written offer to buy the home has
  been based on the assumption that you would be
  selling your existing home. You thought you had
  a deal in hand, but your buyer has just bailed
  out on you.
• 4. Your real estate agent tells you that you are
  offering too much for the property, and that if
  you have to sell it within a few years, you could
  lose a bundle.

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TALKING POINTSChapter Six, Number Two

• You are about to sign a contract to purchase a
  home - the biggest contract you have ever
  signed. How would you react, in word and deed,
  to the following

• 1. A neighbor-to-be tells you that theres a
  zoning change pending that would allow a shopping
  mall to be built two blocks away. Itll be a
  nice mall, but the noise and dirt from
  construction might be awful.
• 2. Another neighbor-to-be tells you that the
  first neighbor (in 1 above) is a pesty gossip
  who drives everyone in the neighborhood batty.
• 3. The guy who did your house inspection calls
  you to tell you he made a mistake in his report -
  that there are some serious cracks in the
  foundation he forgot to mention.
• 4. You realize for the first time that the home
  is in the flight path of the local airport, and
  it can get rather noisy during busy times.