10 Golden Tips to succeed when buying a home

Overview 10 tips on home buying:

Tip 1 – Financial

Make sure you have been to a mortgage broker and that he/she is in the starting blocks to work for you if your offer is accepted anywhere.

Tip 2 – Purchase agent

Always hire a buying agent with good reviews and/or someone who has been recommended by friends/family. Generally speaking, selling brokers prefer viewers who are professionally assisted.

Tip 3 – Search the right way

First, STOP searching and DO NOT use search filters! If you go and search on Funda for the existing supply, very often it has already been sold but is not yet listed as sold on Funda. Search filters are killing. You are missing out on excellent homes as a result.

Set up an automatic search on Funda or with your NVM buying agent. Filter only by location and maximum price. Nothing more. No minimum living area, minimum number of bedrooms, central location or anything else.

Tip 4 – Speed and flexibility

Every morning as you and your partner sit down to breakfast you look at the email you received with new house matches. Look through those and report directly to your buying agent which homes appeal to you. Speed is the key word. If you don’t do this right away in the morning, then you are often (in many regions such as Haarlem) really already too late.

So you contact your broker DIRECTLY and ask him to make a viewing for you. The more flexible you can be for the viewings, the greater the chance of success.

Tip 5 – Don’t let yourself go crazy

When you step into a house, let YOUR feelings speak first. Don’t be led by a real estate agent right away. Ok, you always get an intro first from the selling broker with info.

But below: look around SELF at your leisure and listen carefully to your feelings and the first impression you get. Your first feeling is often right.

Many people are first too guided by others without being able to form their own opinions. But YOU are the one who has to live here! Only after this is an opinion from a realtor, partner, friend, or parent important. A

lf you are our customer, we first want to see if we can see a sparkle in your eyes. And if so, after that we’ll really go over the practical, architectural and legal aspects with you.

Tip 6 – The asking price does not exist

The asking price is very often completely unrelated to the market value of a home. In our region (Haarlem), homes are almost by default offered a lot below market price in order to attract many viewers who then push the price up.

Tip 7 – Trust your buying agent

A real-life example. It may be that we are going to advise you to bid €221,000 on an apartment that is for sale for €195,000.

Don’t you believe us? See tip #6: The asking price does not exist. We recently gave this advice to a client.

It was an apartment of which 3 of that exact type had just been sold of around €220,000. However, the asking price stood at only €195,000. There were (for this reason) more than 80 applicants. As a buying agent, I’m not just going to advise overbidding €26,000 if there’s no reason to do so or if the house isn’t worth that.

Tip 8 – Dare to cut knots

The question is not whether you want to buy that house. The question is whether you are enthusiastic enough to start bidding on this property. There’s a big difference in that. It is quite normal in our region (Haarlem) that there are 80 applicants for 1 house, 40 viewers and 20 applicants who will make an offer on it.

Using a buying agent greatly increases your chances, but we must remain realistic: we have 19 competitors.

Statistics and experience now show that we will have to do some bidding. Of course, it is very strange and stupid that for such an awful lot of money you have so little choice and so little time to choose. We also can’t sugarcoat this, but as fair a picture as possible of the reality we face every day.

Tip 9 – Leverage your financial position

Sales agents don’t look at the highest bid. They look for the highest bid combined with the best terms. Often an offer with a limited or even no financial caveat is more attractive than the highest bid.

Therefore, see if you can limit the amount of the financial caveat. The most advantageous is bidding without a financial caveat. This is often possible if parents are guarantors or there is a lot of excess value from the current home.

Most people don’t have this luxury, but they can often reduce the caveat of financing somewhat. They then buy, for example, a €450,000 home with a financial caveat about €400,000. They can then do that because together they have €70,000 in savings that they could top up in the worst case scenario.

Tip 10 – Switch quickly

Switch quickly. You found and bought a dream home, or at least you thought you did. After the weekend, you’ll get a call from the realtor. The house was sold to someone else while you had bought it.

Is it possible to do that just like that? Yes.

Does that happen often? Yes, regularly.

How can that be? There is the requirement of writing: without signatures, there is no sale.

Therefore, it is important that the seller has signed the purchase contract as soon as possible. After this, he cannot resell the property to anyone else for a number of days (often 5 business days).

But even after this, speed is important. When we purchase a property for our clients we arrange the same day:

• that the selling broker has everything to make the deed of sale in order
• that the building inspection has been scheduled
• That an appraiser has been commissioned (this is required for funding)
• that a notary be engaged

So be well prepared at all times when looking for a home!

So much for the 10 golden tips when buying a home. Good luck with the search for your new home! And if we can help you with this you may always, without obligation
contact
contact us. In fact, we have experienced buying brokers in Haarlem & surrounding areas and are sure we can find your dream home too!