He Said..."Do you want to buy a house, or learn a lesson!"

The other day I was passing by Erick Blackwelder my partner and he was talking to a prospective home-buyer.

The prospective first time buyer asked " How low can we go and how much closing costs can we get on this house?"

Erick's listened attentively and asked " Well that depends. Do you want to buy a house or learn a lesson?"

Everything depends on:

•  how the house shows in comparison to the others you saw during your house hunt
• how many homes are on the market. ( is a balanced market, sellers market or buyers market?
• how is the home priced based on the comparable sold homes
• the terms you hope to get ( terms: closing costs you want the seller to pay, settlement date, repairs etc..)

Erick Blackwelder and myself have been assiting homebuyers for over twenty years here in the Woodbridge, Lake Ridge, Manassas Virginia area.

We are expert negotiators and we sell more homes than most agents in the area.

Did you know it doesn't cost you a penny to have a top producing, skilled real estate working as your Buyers Agent?

If you are thinking it is time to buy a home, first things first. First you need to know how much home can you afford to buy.The best way to do that is to get pre-approved for a home loan. We have several loan officers that we trust to help your through the process VIEW HERE

Here are the next steps to take:

1. Come sit down with myself of Erick Blackwelder of The Erick and Company Team and let's get acquainted. If you can share with us, what you hope to find, what features you want, what would make you say "That's the house I want!" then we can start to find that home for you.
2. We will set you up on email alerts. What we do is add all your personal criteria into our system and then you will be notified by email from the system when any home enter  the market that matches your specific criteria. Note, these are not just homes we list. No matter what company, what real estate agent or for sale by owner enters the MLS system, you will be notified. This says you all that time sitting on the computer looking at house after house getting frustrated. Consider it your personal match maker. ( This service is FREE!)
3. Call us when you see a house you want to look at. The one that peeked your interest enough that you think to yourself. " " I wonder if this is the house?"
4. You found the house! This is when we sit down with you and write an offer up. At this time we review the neighborhood data and surrounding neighborhood data to see what other similar homes sold for. We can share with you what the sellers paid in closing costs for the buyer, how long did the process take and what did that house look like compared to the one you like. Special Note: in this situation, we work as your Buyers Agent. We do not work for the sellers!
5. We present the offer to the Sellers Agent. Then we all wait for a response.
6. Negotiations Time-depending on your offer and how many offers the seller receives this process can be a few hours to a few days. This is the time when nerves are frayed. Trust me when I say, this is Erick's favorite part of being a REALTOR. He thrives on negotiations!
7. Counter Offer- in most cases an offer to buy a home is countered. If the sellers want to change something on the offer we presented, they will strike through a clause, an item or a date and send it back for your review. This is how we hammer out all the details of you wanting to buy the home and the sellers wanting to sell.
8. Ratification- this is your main GOAL. When you get the call from Erick or myself that the seller accepted your offer, we will say your contract is RATIFIED!

Do you have questions about the buying process or how to get started? Just ask us now Email now