Buying A Myrtle Beach Home | Myrtle Beach Homes | Carolina Forest Homes

Jul 17 2018

Are Sellers Listening To You During The Showing?

Today is Amazon Prime Day and while I have spent most of the afternoon fighting the website to order a few items, one of the things I realized pretty quickly was that smart home technology is growing at a rapid rate. This was made evident to me by the enormous amount of smart home tech deals that were being featured in the sale this year. Everything from Amazon Alexa devices to smart outlets, thermostats, lights, doorbells, keys, and so much more. That being said, are sellers listening to you during the showing?

As I began to think about this more, it made me realize how important it is to educate my buyers better before going out to show properties to them. With the increase in these devices, it also means there’s an increased chance that sellers are going to be listening in to our conversations as we walk through the home. Devices like the Ring Doorbell, Nest Cameras, and so many other smart cameras make it super easy for you to now keep an eye and ear on your home from your smartphone while you are away from it.

These devices will alert you when motion or sounds are detected at your home and allow you the opportunity to immediately grab your phone to watch & listen in. Heck, if you wanted to, you could even talk to the people who enter your home and have a conversation with them while they are still there. (I wouldn’t recommend it if you are selling though, bad bad idea.)

In the past while we would walk through the home I would try & ask my buyer clients qualifying questions to see if this might be the right home for them to purchase and wouldn’t think twice to make comments like “this home fits perfectly in your range if you wanted to do a cash purchase” or something like “your lender said we are pre-approved for $250,000 so if we needed to go to full list price, we have the ability to do so and still be within your budget.”

Nowadays though, these types of conversations are not being held in the home with my buyers because when we do that, we could be giving away valuable negotiation power to the sellers. The client level information that we used to be able to talk about freely while viewing homes can now be easily picked up on by sellers and backfire against us in the negotiation process.

What To Do?

So, what should you do these days when viewing homes? First off, I’d keep all my comments positive about the home while inside. If the wallpaper is hideous and you don’t like the color of the bathroom, keep that information to yourself. If you talk negatively about the home you want to place an offer on, you might offend the seller to where they don’t want to sell the home to you, or they become unwilling to negotiate rationally.

Next, if there are things you like about the home, don’t show your hand on this either. If the seller sees you on video jumping up and down and hugging your spouse because you just saw the master bathroom and it has the walk in shower of your dreams, they will know that you are obsessed with the home and less likely to walk away over a little more money and it could cost you more in the long run.

Instead, try to keep your emotions in check, both the good and bad when walking through a home. Obviously, if you have questions about something in the property, make sure to always ask those to your REALTOR® while walking through the home. If you wait until later to try & do so, you might forget them. Next, try & keep any remarks towards anything related to your financial position till after you leave the home. Once you are back in the car with the agent, you can then have that open and free conversation again.

So next time you are out looking at property, keep this in mind to help your agent negotiate for you in a better manner!

Apr 24 2018

The Pros & Cons of a Homeowner’s Association

One of the first questions I try to ask when working with someone buying a home in Myrtle Beach is if they want to live in a community with an homeowner’s association (HOA) or not. Why? Because I would imagine more than half of the communities in the Myrtle Beach area now have some sort of association. To some this is a great thing, to others, they hate the idea of having a board tell them what they can and cannot do with their property.

Here are a few advantages and disadvantages to Homeowners Associations or HOA’s. First, lets discuss some advantages:

1. Get better rates on common utilities. Although what is included in your monthly fee greatly varies, if it includes a utility you normally are getting a better deal. For example, one local community called The Farm at Carolina Forest, has a monthly fee of $84.00 per month. For that fee you get basic cable, trash pickup, & amenities. If you went straight to the TV company for the same basic cable, you would spend $45/month for just that. Add in trash pickup and use of great pools, basketball courts, community center, and exercise gym, and your fees could easily be double.

2. Amenities, Amenities, Amenities! In order for a community to have amenities, they have to be managed by someone and be paid for by homeowners. Typical amenities could include pools, baskeball courts, playgrounds, lakes, gated entrances, security, tennis courts, movie theaters, private beach access, and much more.

3. Uniformity to Neighborhood. This is the biggest complaint that people have in regards to a community with an HOA. They do not want to be told what they can and can’t do. A community will have either a master deed, or covenants/restrictions that explain what you can and cannot do in the neighborhood. It does not mean that every single home will be the same, but that their are certain standards that must be followed.

Why is this good? Well the answer is easy…it helps to control your neighbors from doing things that may subtract from your home’s value. Here are a few examples of things that it may govern:

Lawn and landscape-Not everyone is as meticulous as to how their lawn looks. If you don’t keep up your lawn maintenance, you do run a risk of receiving some sort of fine.
What is in your yard- If your neighbor had 2 broke down vehicles in the front yard that had been sitting there for 2 years all rusted, weeds growing up through them, it would not help attract buyers to a home next door. This past weekend I was out showing property to a family that absolutely loved the home we looked at. But when we walked outside and saw the neighbor have 3 work vehicles, tools, ladders, building supplies, and a backhoe in the front yard, my buyers immediately removed the house from their list of a potential purchase.
Businesses/Hobbies- If your neighbor is starting their own rock band, you may be a little bothered by them constantly practicing at all hours of the night. Most associations address this by having noise restrictions/curfews in place to help prevent these things from happening.
Animals- As crazy as this sounds, there have been several cases where people want to have chickens, roosters, goats and other animals in their back yard. Some may enjoy being awakened every morning by a rooster, but others would not. In a neighborhood with an HOA in place, these types of things would be regulated and you wouldn’t have to worry about the goat from next door getting into your back yard and consuming your gardenias.
Appearance– Most HOA’s regulate the exterior appearance of the home. You cannot decide to make your home like a box of crayola crayons by painting half the house blue, half pink, adding yellow and green shutters, and a neon orange door. Usually there is some sort of style your home has to be and any types of changes have to be approved first by an architectural review board. For example in a community in Carolina Forest called Waterbridge, there are specific rules as to what the exterior of your home must look like.

So now that we discussed why HOA’s are good, here are a few drawbacks:

1. Parking your vehicles- If you want to park an RV in your driveway or bring home a work truck with advertisements for your business, a lot of HOA’s will not permit that in the neighborhood. Also, they may not allow a boat to be parked at your home. Some HOA’s are strict to the point of no parking on the street at any time. If you do, you could get some sort of fine. I remember one time when we went on a listing appointment, we were not aware of the no parking rule. We were at the home for less than 10 minutes before security showed up and was writing the homeowner a fine for our vehicles being parked on the street.

2. Restrictions on landscape & fences- Many of the HOA’s restrict what type of fence you are allowed to install and also require approval to make changes to your landscape. (removing a tree, planting new bushes, etc.) Remember, the HOA is trying to keep a certain standard throughout the community, so in order to do that, they must regulate what happens with everything including tree removal.

3. Rules & Regulations. If you are not used to living in an area where there are restrictions to your property use then going to a community with an HOA may not be an option to you. Having to get approval to make changes to your home & land can sometimes be difficult and can cause stress if you are not allowed to do exactly what you want.

So in closing, there is no right or wrong answer as to whether or not HOA are valuable or terrible. It all comes down to each person’s specific needs and desires. Which do you prefer? An HOA with restrictions and rules, or no HOA where anything and everything could happen that may not be always helping the value of your home? Leave a comment below!

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Mar 28 2018

Winning In Multiple Offer Situations

Our spring real estate market in Myrtle Beach is here! That means that more and more buyers are heading to the area to look for a home to purchase. The snow has melted enough up northeast to allow the buyers to escape and head to Myrtle Beach to start the process of finding their new home in the area. With the increase in number of buyers, this also means an increase in number of offers being made on property in Myrtle Beach.

In more and more cases, these means that we are having multiple offer situations for our buyers. When I meet with a buyer for the first time I explain to them how our market is very strong at the moment and that if they see something while here in Myrtle Beach that there is a high possibility for the property they see to be in a multiple offer situation.

Today I am going to share with you some tips on how you can win in a multiple offer situation. As a Myrtle Beach real estate agent now for over 17 years, I’ve had a lot of experience dealing with these situations and have put together 5 tips that I think can help differentiate your offer from the rest when submitting and hopefully help you win in a bidding war.

The Price

Ok, so when it comes to multiple offers, the number one thing that the sellers are going to look at in most situations is the price. They are going to see who is giving the most amount of money for their property so that they can put the most amount of money in their pocket.

It is important that you put your best foot forward when doing this but not overpay for the property, especially if you are looking at doing financing. Many times, the selling agent will notify all parties with an offer on the property that the seller has called for a highest and best offer. When this happens, the seller is giving all potential buyers the ability to make one last change to their offer if they really want to win the residence. When this happens, sometimes a buyer pulls out, sometimes a buyer stays with their original offer, and sometimes a buyer will increase their amount, remove stipulations from their offer, or make other major changes to get their offer selected over the other ones.

The Closing Date

The second thing that you want to pay attention to in a multiple offer situation to give you the best opportunity to win is the date of closing. As I share a few weeks back, the closing date is a major component in an offer to buy and sell real estate.

If the seller of that property needs to move out and find a property to move to, they may want a longer time in order to find the property they need. If they own it and it is vacant and they want to get it sold quickly to reduce their expenses. Sellers who own vacant homes in Myrtle Beach have large expenses going out each month for utilities, taxes, and HOA dues. The quicker they can close and reduce their expenses, is normally better for a seller.

What I like to do from time to time is to find out that information ahead of time from the selling agent so that when I’m putting together my offer and presenting it we are setting a date that’s going to work best for both parties. I’ve even asked the selling agent before to find out from the seller what date would work best for them in situations where my buyer is flexible with closing on any date.

The Contingencies

The third thing that you want to pay attention to in a multiple offer situation is the contingencies that you add to your offer. Are you writing this offer contingent upon selling another home? Is it contingent upon a home inspection? Is it something where you are trying to get the seller to give you closing costs? Or you are trying to have them fix a bunch of things in the house?

If those things are happening, they are all contingencies that make more work for the seller. The less of those you have in your offer, the better likelihood you are to be picked over some of the other offers they receive. If the sellers have three offers on their Myrtle Beach home and two have contingencies for things to be repaired and inspections to be done while the other offer is willing to purchase the property AS IS, the AS IS offer will be much more appealing to the seller since it involves less work on the home, less questions whether the buyers will actually purchase. If all other parts of the contract are similar, 9 out of 10 times the seller will take this offer over the others.

The Qualifications To Buy

The fourth thing that you want to pay attention to is your money side of things. If you are paying cash for this property, get you a proof of funds letter ahead of time from your bank and submit it with your offer. If you are doing financing, you can still buy the property and win it when you are doing financing if you have a pre-approval ahead of time. I’ll share with you guys at the end how I recently won a multiple offer situation where we had financing over a cash offer.

It is extremely important to include this documentation when submitting your offer to the selling agent. This is the proof showing that you are actually qualified to make the purchase and have actually started the process which makes your offer MUCH more appealing over someone else who the seller does not even know if they can get the money to make the purchase.

The Earnest Money

So the fifth tip I want to talk about today is earnest money. Earnest money is the down money you are putting down with your offer to show that you have interest in this property. While someone else might put only $500 or $1,000 down, if you were to put maybe $2,000, $3,000, $5,000 down you are going to make your offer look more appealing over your competition.

Now you do run a risk of losing that money if you were to walk away from the deal, but if everything goes as planned, and you end up closing on the property, it’s going to help set you apart from someone else. The sellers will look at a deal with more money down as a major appeal over one with less. Just know if for some reason the deal goes south, you do run a risk of losing this money.

How I Win Multiple Offers

So I hope you found a lot of value in these five tips today. And as I mentioned a few minutes ago I wanted to share with you a story recently where I had a multiple offer situation and my buyers were able to win. We were in a multiple offer situation, the agent told us there were other offers on the table make sure you bring your highest and best offer in.

So I spoke with my buyers and we did what these 5 tips said. We got a pre-approval ahead of time, we got a strong earnest money that was higher than what normally people would give, we allowed the sellers to pick the date we are going to close, and we wrote it with basically no contingencies in our offer.

Our offer was picked over other ones and the agent shared with me that the items I suggested to my buyers to make as appealing as possible were the reasons we got our offer picked. Were we probably the highest number one? Maybe not. But, having those four other items in place for us was able to help us win over the others. I know for a fact, one of those other offers even was a cash offer. But our financing one was taken over it because these four other factors made is look like a better option to the sellers. We will actually be closing on this property here in the next few weeks.

Take these five tips to heart, put them into practice and you will be able to win in a multiple offer situation. If you are looking to buy a home in Myrtle Beach and want someone to help you to get the home in a bidding war, feel free to contact me here or call me directly at 843-222-9402. I’d love the opportunity to work with you in buying your next home in Myrtle Beach.

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Feb 07 2018

Tax Refund Season Helps With Myrtle Beach Home Ownership

Living in or around Myrtle Beach is a dream to many. Yet, a lot of renters think that owning a home on the coast is out of reach. Actually, during tax refund season, more buyers qualify over any other time of the year! There are several ways that tax refunds create more approved Horry County homebuyers. Let’s discuss these refund benefits as well as the home loans available for Myrtle Beach area buyers.

Using Tax Refund for Down Payment

Buying a home may come with hurdles for some and down payment is usually a primary roadblock. Although, tax refund season provides a solution for this potential issue. Even though the funds may not be in the bank account yet or has just been deposited, they are considered the buyer’s own funds. Plus, as soon as they are in the bank account, lenders consider the funds as usable immediately. If a buyer has not received the refund yet, just provide the filed tax return as proof!

First time buyers that are maybe just starting out on their own or have a new job, are often short on down payment. But, there are some great low down payment mortgage options where tax refunds may actually cover the full amount needed to buy. Home loan programs include FHA, VA, USDA, Conventional, and SC down payment assistance. Down payment requirement for these programs vary from 3.5% to zero down.

No Down Payment Loans Assisted by Tax Refunds Too

As mentioned above, there are no down payment loans as well. So, how do buyers using a no down payment loan benefit from tax refunds? Just because there is no down payment doesn’t mean these funds can’t be helpful. Keep in mind that there are closing costs on buying a home. Plus, buyers must pay the first year of insurance plus taxes and insurance escrow set up (if applicable). Therefore, a refund could cover part or all of these costs for a buyer.

Keep in mind that there is an additional way to cover these closing costs. The costs could be included in the price and home loan! In order to finance these costs, a purchase contract could include seller paid closing costs. Each loan type has certain limits to this assistance, although usually the limits will cover most or all costs.

Tax Refund Helps Buyers Qualify Easier

What if a buyer has a lower credit score, high debt to income ratio, or other issues which cause qualification problems? A refund could be used to pay off debts, pay down a credit card for increasing credit scores, or just used to increase the assets for a buyer’s qualification. These additional assets could take a buyer from a denial to a purchase loan approval. While determining an approval, mortgage underwriters and automated systems weigh positives and negatives of a file. Receiving a tax refund could bolster the buyer’s profile and could make a huge difference in qualification.

An important consumer message is not to withdraw a tax refund from a bank account and convert it to cash. Lenders will not allow cash funds towards buying a home. So rather than converting the refund to cash, keep the funds in the bank account.

Other Uses for Tax Refunds

Not only do refunds help in qualifying, but they also help in life. After buying a home, the buyer could use a refund to set up an emergency savings account. Things happen and having a savings cushion really helps in these areas. Plus, after buying a home, there are usually items to buy. These could include curtains, furniture, paint or buying a home warranty. You may even choose to buy a really cool beach picture for your new coastal home!

So if you are have a tax refund coming your way in the next few weeks, feel free to reach out & get the home search process started. You may be surprised what type of home you could afford in the Myrtle Beach market today! You can either call Jeremy at 843-222-9402 or contact him here.

Jan 16 2018

5 Mistakes To Avoid When Buying A Myrtle Beach Home In 2018

It’s time for another Two Minute Tuesday where today we are going to discuss 5 mistakes to avoid when buying a Myrtle Beach home in 2018. If you don’t feel like reading, you can watch this video where I give you the summary of this entire post.

Today I’m going to share with you the top 5 most common mistakes I’ve seen buyers make when purchasing a home over the last several years. We’ve written a contract on a home here in Myrtle Beach, the buyers are excited and have already moved into the new home in their minds and forget about something very important still needing to happen, the financing. Over the past 17 years in this business, I’ve run into these 5 items on more than one occasion so I figured I’d share them with people thinking of buying a home in the next year to save you some headaches and issues.

5 Mistakes to Avoid When Buying a Home in 2018

1. Don’t go change jobs. We see too many times where somebody changes jobs the week before closing or they are moving here from another state and while they may have a job lined up, they now have no employment. Almost every lender that I deal with will do a final check up on employment the week before closing to make sure the borrower still has that steady source of income.

If the source of income has disappeared, the lender isn’t going to give you a few hundred thousand dollars to purchase a home if they cannot see that you will have the ability to repay on the mortgage. Now, if you are transferring from one location to a location here within the same company doing the same job with basically the same pay, then you are fine. This won’t cause an issue. If you are changing careers or going to pursue something completely different, wait a few months after you have your home to make that change.

2. Paying Off Your Debt- The second thing that causes problems when you are trying to purchase a house is you were to go and pay off all your debt. A common misconception that buyers have when purchasing a home is that if they can reduce their debt more, it can make them more qualified to purchase. While this is partially true in the sense that it does help with your debt to income ratios, it actually can cause more harm by closing out several credit lines. When you pay off those lines of credit, your score can actually go down in a negative manner that can make your credit score too low to qualify.

Before you start paying off all your debt, talk to the lender. Sometimes they will tell you that you need to pay off something in order to qualify, but in other instances they will tell you not to because it could be a negative effect. Many times the best option is to just keep making monthly payments till after closing and then pay off those small loans.3. Keeping your down payment in cash. Unfortunately there are some people that just do not trust in banks. They do not trust in their systems so they keep their money in cash, either tucked under a mattress, in a piggy bank, or in a coffee can in the back of the toilet. Unfortunately when that happens, you do not have that money in a seasoned fund which is what the banks are looking at when they are trying to give you a loan.

I remember a client who was ready to purchase a condo in Myrtle Beach and the lender could not qualify him for the small loan because the gentleman didn’t trust in banks and kept the $100,000 he was going to use to purchase at home. He was only trying to get a loan for around $75,000 but because the part he was bringing to the table wasn’t seasoned funds, it delayed the closing and almost lost him the property.

4. Making large purchases. Listen, I get that your car may be old and it’s breaking down. But try to make it through purchasing your home and closing before running to dealership and buying a new vehicle. If you are wanting new furniture for your new house, don’t go to the furniture store and purchase it on a credit card.

If the furniture store asks you “Do you want to buy this on 6 months same as cash deal?” Just say no! What they are going to do is open a credit card for you that a payment isn’t due for an extended period of time. But, it will be a lowering on your credit score, and an increase on your overall debt. When those things happen it could knock you out of the ability to get the actual financing for your new home. So you may end up with a brand new sofas and no place to them.

5. Do not change banks. Your money is sitting right now in an institution. If you take that money and move it over to somewhere else or transfer it over to another account, it then becomes non-seasoned funds. You need to have that money sitting still for 30-60 day period so that the bank can see this is the actual money that you are using for a down payment and it is actually yours.

The banks what to see that this money isn’t money that somebody gave you and will want it back, it’s not money that you stole from somewhere, and it’s not something you got from a credit card cash advance. The reason for the 30-60 day time period is so that if you did get it as a loan from somewhere, it will have time to show up on your credit report.

Wrap Up

In closing, I want to make one final point. When you are purchasing a home, the lenders are going to do a final check on everything related to you and any other borrowers on the loan. When you apply for the loan, you answer some basic questions related to employment, your current assets, your current debt, and current credit score. These numbers is what a lender uses to determine if you qualify for a loan.

These items will then be verified by the lender of the next few weeks after application has been made to make sure you are telling them the truth. Then, a few days prior to closing after all the title work, appraisals, and inspections are done, the lender will then do a final check to make sure that all the information you gave in the beginning is still true and that nothing major has been changed since the original application.

If anything does change, that will be the difference between you purchasing your new Myrtle Beach house or not. If you have any other questions regarding mistakes to avoid when buying a home in Myrtle Beach in 2018, feel free to call me at 843-222-9402 or you can contact me through the website.

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