REALTORS & Lenders & Lawyers Oh My
6 Service Providers You Need to Know When Buying or Selling a Home
Buying a new home or selling a current home can be an exhausting and stressful venture. Luckily, no one has to go it alone. There are many professional service providers whose sole job is to make real estate transactions easier. Four of these providers include REALTORS, attorneys, loan officers and inspectors. In most real estate transactions, both buyers and sellers will come in contract with all or a combination of these providers. Read below for more information about how these individuals can help when closing a real estate deal.
REALTORS
Whether buying or selling a home, a good place to start is a local REALTOR. Before beginning the search, understand that while all REALTORS are real estate licensees, not all licensees are REALTORS. REALTORS are members of the National Orgainization of REALTORS adhere to the REALTOR Code of Ethics.
If purchasing a home, a REALTOR arranges showings and searches the MLS, or multiple listing service, for their buyers. REALTORS also walk the buyer through the offering process, inspection and repair negotiations, as well as closing day.
An agent representing the seller has a different role; the role of marketer. The job of the agent is to list and market a property that it sells as quickly as possible for the best attainable price. The agent will also help with the process of responding to offers, and the same negotiations as a buyer’s agent as well as lead the seller through closing.
Loan Officer
Before searching for a REALTOR, one of the most important things to determine is how much shopping money there is available so that the REALTOR can narrow his or her search. Ultimately, a loan is obtained through a lender, which is often a bank or a mortgage company. The individual to speak with concerning a mortgage is a mortgage loan officer. He or she can compare income to debt ratios and pull credit reports in order to determine a maximum loan amount for a buyer. There is often quite a bit that the loan officer will ask for when a loan application is completed. These items include W2s, copies of the last year’s tax return and a list of assets available. All of these things go into determining the amount of money the lender will loan.
Inspectors
Typically the next individual that a buyer and seller will run into is the licensed home inspector. It is always a good idea for a buyer, whether he or she is a first time home buyer or not, to obtain a home inspection. This is true even if the home is new construction. All things created by man are fallible, but sometimes problems are not easily seen except by those who are licensed to find them. The buyer is usually responsible for paying the inspector, while the seller is responsible for making the repairs (though this is always a point of negotiation).
Attorneys
Real estate attorneys have a very specific job when it comes to closing a real estate transaction. Their main tasks include title work, preparing and transferring the deeds, and the accounting that goes into the real estate transaction. Often, the lenders pass along all of their paper work to the attorney and ask that they obtain signatures and initials as needed. Real estate attorneys provide both buyer and seller with a copy of the HUD-1 form, which is a federal form designed to outline every penny that exchanges hands in the transaction. The form tells the buyer how much to bring to closing and the seller how much they are walking away way with.
