I recently mentioned that I was homestaging my property to put it up for sale. Since I am in a real estate mood, I’ve decided to continue on and post about which professionals can help you prepare for a real estate transaction.

Real Estate Agent

I’ll tell you upfront, I don’t appreciate real estate agents. I think we are paying them too much for what they offer.  Just about anyone can take picture of their property and put it on a website.

However, when you are looking to buy a property, they can be a invaluable. Once they understand your needs, they can pull out the listings and make the appointments for visits without you having doing anything. They can also help you analyze a few properties if you can’t make a decision. So in my opinion, using a real estate agent for a sale is a big no, but I would consider one to help me buy a property.

Notary / Lawyer

Notaries and lawyers are very important in real estate transactions as they prepare the legal documents to ensure a safe, honest, transparent transaction between both parties. Their advice can be very useful when you are considering making your offer.

Inspector

I would definitely use the services of an inspector if you are buying a property older than 5 years. He will go from the basement to the roof to make sure there are no defects in the property. Definitely a must when you want to avoid further pain in the future!

Appraiser

The appraiser is not much of a big help but I wanted to mention it because people are often confused between the inspector and the appraiser. The real estate appraiser will assign a current market value to your property but won’t examine it to make sure it’s in good condition (besides obvious thing like crack in the walls).

Financial Advisor / Banker

Your financial advisor or banker will be of a great help in terms of choosing the type of mortgage and how much you can borrow to buy your property. If he’s smart enough, he will be able to explain the different advantages of variable and a fixed rate mortgages as well as home equity lines of credit. He will challenge you about your original plan and offer you a “real” credit solution to your project.

These are probably the 5 experts that will help you out when buying or selling a property. Besides the real estate agent, I am using them all

Author: Mike.

_{»crosslinked«}

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

• The Pros and Cons of Buying a Home Good Morning Green Panda Friends!  The second post in our Leasing vs. Buying series discusses the Pros and Cons of Buying a Home versus the Pros and Cons of Leasing an Apartment.  We may want to buy our first home because we want our own space, or we may......
• Financial Guru Review: Ramit Sethi If you’re looking to get out of debt, organize your finances, and build wealth; you may be tempted to see what the financial gurus are saying on what to do. I do a financial guru review on some topics that are of concern to many of my readers. Reviewing Ramit......

• Professional Agent - Real Estate Agent Web Sites document.write(''); New! Have your website pay for itself, and make you money. Place banner ads on your website for other local businesses and have them pay you! Get started now. Real Estate LeadsTotal website solution for real estate agent to start a website.document.write(''); Jam-packed with features for you and......
• Real Estate Investments - Good Idea or Bad Idea? Right now, if there was a market that had bad news written all over it, it would be real estate. The housing crisis has made investors jumpy, the economy appears to be tanking and home values are plummeting across the country. Would you believe that this is actually a good......