HomeBuying

So you're thinking about buying a house, or a condo, or a townhouse, or something? How do you decide on what the right type of home to purchase is based on your budget and your lifestyle? First of all, a lot of people, with lower price ranges particularly, often think a condo or a townhouse is going to solve all their problems, because usually, they're a little less expensive, in most cases than a single-family home. Don't forget that one of the things you have to include, and that your lender is going to look at, in your qualifications number, is the homeowners association, the condo association, whatever they want to call it, that community that you're joining is going to have a fee every month. Sometimes it's going to have special assessments, sometimes those fees can go up. But always, you're going to want to make sure that the fee that is there now is going to work with your budget and the payment that you're going to end up with, and that it's going to cover enough to make you feel comfortable spending that money. The main difference between a townhouse and a condo is the type of ownership. Basically, in a condo, you own what's inside the four walls. Often people think of condos as units in a building like apartments. But, sometimes townhome-looking things can be condos as well. But again, you only own what's inside those four walls. As opposed to having any land or garden yard, whatever that is yours. Obviously with a single-family home, unless you're in a maintenance-free community, all of that exterior maintenance is going to be yours with a townhouse or a condo. Often, that fee is going to cover things like the landscaping and the outdoor areas. Usually, if there's a pool or other amenities, tennis courts, that sort of thing, it's going to cover those as well. But often, it will also cover siding, the roof, the exterior items like doors, and things like that. But those are going to be on a schedule. So there are a lot of moving parts. When you start looking at those associations, what they cover, and how they're covered, you might be thinking, well, I'm not going to pay $250 a month because I can buy a house and then I'll just mow my own grass. But, you can usually pretty much assume that you're going to end up somehow spending at least $250 a month on your single-family home unless you are kicking some maintenance items down the road a little piece. So while the money is important, often the lifestyle is even more important. More maintenance-free options, like townhomes and condos, I think are fantastic for a lock-it-and-leave-it mentality. If you travel a lot for work or you travel a lot for pleasure, or you just don't have time to do yard work or it's just not something you want to do. You don't want to have to worry about getting quotes on a new roof. You want somebody else to deal with that. Or maybe you want the amenities that come with a townhome, a maintenance-free community, or a condo. Those are really lifestyle differences instead of just simple financial ones. Make sure that you read those documents well. You do have a three-day right of rescission, if you can't live with the way that they take care of the property, what you're paying for, or if it looks like their finances are shaky. You want to make sure that you're comfortable not only with the amount of money, but also what you're getting for the amount of money you're paying. A condo or townhome may be for you if you want to have a little bit more of a hands-off approach to maintenance. Sometimes it's worth it and sometimes it's not. If you're thinking about buying I'd love to talk through it with you and help you determine what the best deal for you is for both your budget and your lifestyle to make sure that the home that you buy is one that you love to live in. Give me a call send me a message shoot me an email and let's get started.

Do you even need a realtor to set up a search for you if you're just starting your search process? There are so many search portals out there that often when people get started on their search, they start on the internet, they start looking at all of those portals. And we'll say to a realtor, I don't need you to set up a search, I already have access to all this other stuff. So if you're thinking about looking for a home, or you're starting to seriously look for a home, and your agent says, hey, I want to set you up with a search portal, there are a few reasons why you might want to do that. First of all, the timeliness with which that information gets syndicated out to all those other sites, sometimes it can take two days. And in two days, in this market, you may have missed the boat on that home that you could have fallen in love with. Secondly, it's a great little reminder for your agent. If I am looking for five different buyers and I have searches set up, it's going to send me a copy of that too. So I am also able to get that little tap on the shoulder from the multiple listing service, letting me know hey, there is a house that you know, Bob and Mary Smith might love. It's also a great way to communicate with your agent because you can put notes on there. So as we're sometimes learning what you like and what you don't like, if you're putting notes on there that say things like I love this location, but I hate this kitchen, then that helps me if I'm your agent learn a little bit better about what you like. So always don't get too specific in those things, but it really does shorten that learning curve a little bit and help make your home search a little bit more efficient. So if your agent says, "Let me set you up with a search portal", don't just wave it off. Yes, it's one more email. But hopefully it won't take very long before you'll be able to find the home that you love. It'll be easier, shorten that learning curve, and make sure that you're knowing exactly what comes on the market exactly when it comes on the market and not two days later. If you have any questions about the home buying process, the home searching process, I'd love to talk to you more, give me a call, send me an email or shoot me a message and let's chat.

Every buyer's journey is different, but I want to share this one with everyone to show what a difference small changes make. Ready to start your buyer's journey? Reach out to me on Instagram @ CindyBennettRealEstate or via my website cindybennett.net.

You've got to be kidding, we're still having multiple offer situations. Fortunately, or unfortunately, yes, we are still seeing multiple offer situations all over the place every week, every day, in lots of different price ranges with lots of different homes. So if you're thinking of buying, I wanted to break down just a little bit of what you can. I don't know that I want to say look forward to but maybe expect if you're looking at a home and likely to run into a multiple offer situation. So working with your buyer's agent, you're going to look at all of the homes that have sold in the area that are kind of comparable and get a feel for what homes are selling for. Now, if a home sold a year ago, it's not really going to be a great comp. So don't hang your hat on that and get hung up on what somebody paid six months or a year ago. I can almost guarantee you, the house that you're going to buy is going to end up costing more than the same house sold for six months ago or a year ago. That's just what the market is doing right now. So make sure that you're realistic in what things are costing, what homes are selling for, and what you're willing to pay. If the house is turnkey and doesn't need anything that has a value beyond just the dollar amount of those individual fixes. So if that's what you're looking for a turnkey situation, give that the credit that it's due, and go a little bit higher, knowing that you're going to be able to move in and put your feet up. Rather than have to do a whole bunch of projects in the first month you're living there, the more information you can find out the better. So if you know how many offers, if your agent can find out how many offer their offers, there is anything that you can find out is going to help you. Keep in mind that it's not always about price, you can add a lot of little details to your offer that are going to make it more appealing that might be the closing date, it might be inspection terms, it might be a rent back that the seller wants or needs. Or it may be something totally random, like, you know, they need to have an extra three weeks because they have to clean out the garage. The more things that you give them like that the more appealing your offer is going to be. But often it really does come down to price. So make sure that you are looking at current comparables with your agent and coming up with a price that is good today. If you're thinking about buying, and you're curious about multiple offer situations, how they work, how to navigate them how to get the best deal for you, while also winning the house. Give me a call. I'd love to help we'll walk you through it. And my goal is always to walk you through it a little bit before we get to the day that you find the house that you love. So they have a little bit more information to navigate those waters without just jumping in cold and having to swim. Give me a call. I'd love to talk to you.

Have you always thought about buying investment property, but you're not sure where to start, how to start, or what you need to know to really get going? And who would do that in this market anyway? Let's unpack some of the numbers and historical numbers and kind of take a look at why now might actually not be a bad time to get into real estate investing. If you look at the average appreciation over the last couple of years, and these are big national numbers, so they're gonna be dependent upon where you are, and the neighborhood and the area and the county and the city and all that good stuff. But the overall numbers are 20% appreciation on home values over the last two years. Those are pretty wild and crazy numbers, because where are you getting a 20% return on an investment that is relatively safe, like it's not likely to drop by, you know, 100 points tomorrow. Now, those numbers are unlikely to continue. So while 20% is great, that also implies that prices are going to go up by that much, right? Nobody really wants that. But over the last 10 years, we've seen increases in value of about 10%, prior to the last couple of years. So that is still a pretty solid return on your investment over time. When we look at the average return on standard traditional investment stocks and 401k's and things like that, as being between 5% and 8%, take into account the fact that income has only increased year over year by four to 5%. And hedging against inflation. Figuring out how to make your money make more money for you, real estate investing is a really solid way to go. You could check my other video that has some more information about different business models on real estate investing, whether you are looking to have immediate cash flow, whether you just want to balance it and bank on the appreciation, house hack, or any other type of real estate investing. But overall, the appreciation and the ROI that you get from real estate is a really solid investment and something that is a great way to pay for your kids college. If you buy a house when they're young, sell it when they go to school often you can pay for their whole college experience just by the appreciation alone. So if you've ever thought about investing in real estate, it is not a bad time even though rates are a little high. And your return on your investment can be really fantastic depending on what you buy. So if you want more information and you're curious about getting started, you want to see what it takes. Give me a call or send me an email let's schedule a time to chat and discuss your long-term plans, and short-term plans, and see if jumping into the real estate market as an investment is the right time for you.

So you're thinking about buying some investment property, what are some things you might want to consider? First of all, you want to keep in mind that the parameters that you use for buying investment property are seldom the same as what you would use if you're buying a house that you're going to live in or even a vacation home. There are a few different business models that you can use. And we're talking mainly about residential investment property. So you can do short-term rental, you can do long-term rentals, you can do mid-term rentals. But also, look at how you want to build that portfolio or even just get started if this is your first one. So one of the most ideal business models is something where you're going to have immediate cash flow, but particularly in this market, that is often kind of hard to come by to find something where your mortgage is going to be less than the amount that you're charging for rent. So that is kind of a delicate balance, and something that requires some calculation, and sharpening the pencil to get to the numbers where they need to be. The second business model is where it covers itself pays for itself all along to a degree at least, but appreciates over time. So you're really banking on that appreciation over time. So that would be a scenario where your mortgage is $2,000 a month, and you can also get $2,000 a month in rent. So you do not have to necessarily lay money out every month except for repairs or upgrades and things like that. But it's not making money every month. Nothing is going back in your pocket until you go to sell or it appreciates over time. The third and one you see a lot of investment people and motivational people talk about is "house hacking". And what does that mean? If you don't know house hacking is where you buy a multifamily property. So a duplex or a triplex for a quad and you live in one unit and rent out the rest. This is a fantastic scenario, especially if you're a first-time buyer, if you are not tied up on your first home, particularly your dream home. Or if you just want to focus more on building wealth and building that investment portfolio. So often, it'll pay for you to live there. If your mortgage is $3,000 a month on a duplex, for example, and you can charge $2,000 a month, then you're only paying $1,000 to live in the other unit. You can do this every two years really, and keep swapping up just building your portfolio rather than renting that unit that you've moved out of doing it again and doing it again. So often you'll hear people talk about House hacking. That's what that is. So if you want to get started in real estate investing, one of the best things is, obviously, to give me a call, call an agent in your market who is familiar with investors and working with investors and real estate investing so that you can sort of get the lay of the land and figure out what business model works best for you for your finances, for your family for your future, how you want to do it, because then you can really focus on the properties that are going to work to fit into that business model. But if you're curious about investing, I do have a lot of experience working with investors. I have done this myself. So I know a lot about the process of getting there and going through and some of the pitfalls that you might want to avoid. So give me a call send me a message shoot me an email and let's talk.

So you want to buy or sell a house, but you need a little breathing room and you don't know how you're going to work, the timing of that whole situation, especially in this market, what do you do? One way that we often handle these logistics of literally moving targets with closing dates, times moving trucks, people moving in people moving out is with a possession by seller or possession by purchaser agreement. But what are those? You may have heard that term, and sometimes the possession by the seller is actually called a rent back. That's our common vernacular for that document, or that situation. And it's called a rent back because basically, you as the seller are renting back your house after you close and the purchaser actually owns it. We do have another thing called a possession by the purchaser. That is very, very seldom used, because there are a lot of risks involved in letting a purchaser move into your house before you are actually close as you can imagine, they move in and they start putting wallpaper up or demoing the kitchen, and some reason, their deal does not close and you're stuck with whatever they did when they were in your house and you're also kind of stuck with them in your house, and you may accidentally become a landlord. We don't use those very often. The way that the possession by the seller works is literally just like the way you would rent a property. So you own the house, you know, you're going to close on, say the 10th of the month, but you need to stay in for an extra week or two, we're going to have a whole document that's basically a rental agreement where the purchaser closes, and then you're going to be renting that house back from them for the next week or two weeks, whatever. There is usually a deposit just in case you damage anything while you're moving or getting all your stuff out. And you are going to have to cover that if that happens. There's generally a per diem amount as well. So if you go past that, say, you're supposed to close on your new construction, this is one where sometimes the closing dates don't really line up the way we want them to say you're closing on new construction on the fifth of the month. And that's when your rent back ends on the house that you're leaving. But the builder isn't ready until the 10th, so you may have to pay extra, then for those additional days that you stay, or you may just have to beat it because sometimes the agreement was you're going to be out on the fifth and sometimes that's just what has to happen. All of this can get really confusing and sound really confusing. In reality, it's not that confusing, but a lot of it goes back to having a plan before you put your house on the market before you write the contract for the house that you fall in love with making sure that you sit down with your agent and kind of plan out that whole scenario. Sometimes hard when you're really emotional about this process or you're looking at all the other moving parts, but the times and the dates and all of that good stuff really get important, so having that plan is really key. I'd love to explain to you how that might work for you, so just give me a call send me an email, send me a message, and let's set up a time to chat.

Who pays for what when you're buying or selling a house: buyer edition. So if you're buying a house, sometimes when you get excited you think about the process, and you're really focused on looking at homes and that whole emotional aspect of it, you don't necessarily think about all of the little things that come along the way, and who pays for them. So when you're buying a home, the first thing once you have found the house that you love, and you're writing the offer, of the first things you're going to do is you're going to write a check to send a wire for the earnest money deposit. Now, that is basically a deposit that is going to be held in escrow. So it doesn't go directly to the seller in the state of Virginia, in the state of Virginia, that is all I can talk about because that is where I am licensed. So in the state of Virginia, it does not go directly to the seller, it gets held by the settlement agent that you're going to use to do your closing, or the real estate company that you are working with to buy your home, that generally needs to be about 1% of the entire purchase price of the home. So if your house is $500,000, you probably want to write about $5,000. As your earnest money deposit, it basically binds the contract again, it gets held in an escrow account until closing. So if you were originally going to have to bring $100,000 to closing, you will then only have to bring $95,000 Because that $5000 gets applied to whatever else you bring to closing for your downpayment, your closing costs. Another thing you're gonna have to pay for as the buyer is any inspections that you have. And we are now still in a crazy tight market, but we are seeing a good number of inspections. And they can range in price from $100 to $1,000, depending on the type of inspection. And what I always tell people is you can have as many inspections as you are willing to pay for. You have to weigh that out and discuss that with your agent, because you may know that you want to have a camera sewer inspection on one house, and on another house, it may not seem as important. So sometimes those numbers and those types of inspections depend on what you're buying, and where and all that good stuff. So remember, the seller is not paying for any inspections except the pest, Wood Destroying Insect, inspection. That is the one that they're paying for and it usually costs them $100 or less. Once you've covered that earnest money deposit and your inspections, your next cost is going to be your appraisal. And if you're going to have a survey. And your appraisal is generally going to be in the 600 to $1,000 range. And that survey, if you want to have one, a lot of lenders don't require them anymore, but they vary widely depending on the property, the type of property, where it is, how difficult it is to survey, and 100 other things. So I can't give you an estimate there. But those generally are going to be things that you're going to have to pay for out of pocket, because should the loan not go through, those people still want to be paid. So they're going to want the money upfront and not rolled into your closing costs that happen on closing day. After you get through those financial hurdles, you're not going to have to pay anything really until you get to the settlement table and then you're going to have all of your lender fees, your attorney fees, your title insurance, your points that you might have with your mortgage, there are a whole bunch of things and I have another video that kind of breaks down the closing costs, so go check that out if you want a little bit more detailed info on what your closing costs entail. But at settlement, you're going to get that earnest money deposit that you paid upfront applied to that number and then you're going to have all of your closing costs and the actual amount that you're paying for your down payment. And then you're done. But those little along-the-way fees sometimes get lost and all the excitement so just make sure that you've budgeted and that you've got the cash, even if you're putting a relatively low down payment, make sure you've got the cash to cover all those other things that you might want to do along the way or that you're going to be required to do. If you have any questions or you want a little bit more detailed information about what things might look like for you in your financial situation with the home that you want to purchase. Give me a call I'd love to chat and help you make your homeownership dreams come true.

If you're buying a home and you write your offer you love the house, the thing that you love the most is that fantastic chandelier in the dining room, and the adorable dog house that looks exactly like the house you're buying. Make sure you write those things in. Here in central Virginia, our contract actually lists out the items that are automatically assumed to be staying when you buy your house. So they're automatically in the contract. We don't need to write those in. They are technically things that are attached to the house, which means fixtures, fans, curtain rods, blinds, dishwashers, microwaves, and stoves. That's basically it. Now, some of the gray areas can be mirrors in the bathroom, sometimes they are attached. And sometimes they're not refrigerators. Well, they're always attached the same way a stove is, why are they not included? I don't really know. But they're not. So we always write those in. If we're buying a home, and you want to keep that refrigerator or the washer and dryer, we're gonna have to write those in because they're not automatically included in the contract. But I would go a step further and say, that if you absolutely fell in love with that chandelier in the dining room, and the seller wants to take it, they should have excluded it. But if we know we want to keep it and we know we don't want any hurt feelings, or kerfuffle, as we go through the process, we go ahead and write that in as well. So to be safe, we're always going to write in all of those little extras, but probably not the window blinds in the bathroom, and probably not the ceiling fan that's in the rec room. If you're looking at homes online, and you are not working with a realtor, I'd love to help you figure out exactly what you're looking for and what's going to stay with that home when you purchase it. So give me a call and let's chat and I can help you navigate that entire process.

If you spend any time at all on social media, you probably hear people talking a lot about buying houses to invest in short-term rentals and what a great source of passive income that is. So you maybe thought, Should I buy a house and use it as a short-term rental? Let's talk about some of the details that you might want to think about. You may have heard the old saying, you know, you make money on the front end, not the back end. So if you're looking at a house, to be a short-term rental, make sure that it's not something that's going to need a ton of work that's gonna then price you out of that short-term rental market to recoup your money. Also, make sure that if you are looking in an area that maybe you're not as familiar with, you are familiar with, or get familiar, with the zoning laws and regulations or short-term rentals in that area. Because they don't allow it and you definitely don't want to buy something to use as a short-term rental, and only to find that you can't. If the property is not currently furnished, or if you don't like the furnishings, then make sure that you're calculating into your budget, all those furnishings that you're going to have to put in to make it be fantastic. Because, you can get a great rate for a short-term rental, but not if it looks like everything came from you know, the goodwill. When you're doing your calculations, you also want to include things like who's going to manage it, who's going to check on it? What are the fees going to be? How is it going to get cleaned? Do you have an HOA in that neighborhood or area that needs to be paid? All of those little things get an idea of the utility costs, that sort of thing, and I have a great spreadsheet that you can plug all those numbers in. So if you want a copy of that or you want to get a little bit more information about buying a short-term rental owning a short-term rental, what to look for, and the do's and don'ts. I'd love to talk to you happy to help and put you on the right track to finding out all of the information that you might need to know to make a decision if it is in fact a good call or if maybe you want to go another direction for your investment.