Is Price per Square Foot Useful?

Price per square foot is a concept in real estate which is easy to understand and just as easy to misuse. The formula is pretty simple: To determine price per square foot, you take a price, such as sale price of a home, and divide it by the square footage of the property.

Protect Your Home While You Are Away

Even though Prescott, Arizona, is a popular vacation destination, many people go on vacation throughout the year.  Before you leave town, I thought you might be interested in a few precautionary safety tips to keep your home and your possessions safe while you’re gone.  Often in the run-up to a vacation, people neglect to take simple steps to protect themselves from becoming a victim of theft or vandalism.

For most people, changing employers will not impact the ability to qualify for a mortgage loan, especially if you are going to be earning more money. For some homebuyers, however, the effects of changing jobs can spell disaster when it comes to your loan application. Make sure you discuss in great detail with your lender and know ahead of time what implications any change in your employment that might occur during your home buying experience and what its impact could be. Always be armed with the best knowledge and you will stay on the right track.

When talking with real estate agents, you’ll often find that when they speak to you about buying real estate, they refer to buyer’s purchasing a “home” and the sellers putting their “house” on the market. Why the play on words? The reason is psychological. Buying and selling real estate is one of the most involved and emotional situations a person can ever be in. Unless it’s simply for investment purposes, in which case many of these types never even see the homes they buy to fix and flip, it’s all number crunching for profit (if any) and no emotional ties are present.

When we are representing buyers in a deal, we always like to be sure a "final walk-through" is included prior to closing. This is especially true in a market where desperate and less-than-reputable sellers may try and walk out with the fixtures. While that may sound a little extreme, the final walk-through can head-off conflict before closing.

The final walk-through allows us to address common issues such as:

• If the current owner is on schedule to move out
• That the property is in the same condition it was when shown
• That any repairs required have been completed

How Do You Plan On Finding The Perfect Home?

So you’re thinking about hunting for a home. Congratulations! How do you plan on finding the home you want? It’s surprising how few people can answer this question. Most people say: “Well, I guess I’d look online and maybe contact a real estate agent.” Sure, that’s a fine place to start... but if you want to hunt for a home like a pro, here are some simple tactics that will make your experience much more efficient, pleasurable, and likely to land you a home you want to buy.

When you’re house hunting, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. You’re making a big investment. You want to find a place which is “just right” for you (and your family). You can even get a little addicted to touring houses, always convinced the perfect home is just about to hit the market. Sometimes inability to pull the trigger on a house can cause serious shopper’s remorse. You could miss out on a home that, in retrospect, was ideal. 

So how do you know a home is “the one”?

Here are some useful ways to check your buying temperature and know when it’s time to make an offer:

1. The home fundamentally meets your needs. There’s plenty of compromise in home hunting, so when you find one that has the basics covered, take note.