How do you compete as a home buyer here in the Rochester, Minnesota area? Over the years, many clients have come to me and one of the biggest complaints I get right away is, you know, houses are selling fast. Maybe you’ve actually looked online and you’ve seen houses that have been for sale and you looked the next day and it’s sold. Maybe you called an agent and found out that the property had sold, you know, a few days ago, that stuff is not uncommon.
Further, I get a lot of people asking, you know, “How is it that you can make sure you get a good deal when the houses are selling oftentimes over asking price or with multiple offers?” And ultimately, how do you make a good competitive offer that’s actually going to get accepted? So a lot of this can get even worse when you look at a lot of the misinformation that you can find online. As a real estate agent who is in the street doing this every single day here in the Rochester area, I know what is going on, and a lot of the online information could be inaccurate, it could be outdated. It’s just not a reliable source for you to get good, concrete, local information.
Further, there’s a lot of inexperience out there with other real estate agents. In fact, if you look at, just a few weeks ago, I saw a post from the National Association of Realtors which noted that only 8% of agents did more than four transactions in the first six months of 2022, that is not good. We gotta make sure that you’re working with a good agent. Here in the Rochester area, I am one of the top real estate agents. Actually, just one top real estate agent here in the Rochester area. So I definitely know what I am talking about when it comes to these things in my territory. If you’re looking outside of Rochester, or you know someone who’s looking in a couple states away, it’s not a bad idea to reach out to me either. I can definitely make sure that you have a good agent in that territory who’s actually going to be able to help you get a good deal and ultimately understand how this whole thing really fits together.
I want make sure that it’s clear to people that you wanna make sure you’re working with a good agent. Working with the wrong agent can sabotage an entire sale and you wanna make sure you have a good bird’s eye view of everything that’s going into that. So you could lose the house, not find what you’re looking for, you know, a lot of people have mentioned feeling lost in the process, prior to coming to me anyways. In this video, I’m gonna break down the five foundational elements of what I call my strategic home buying consultation. If you’re looking to buy or build here in Rochester, you can actually just reach out to me directly and I’ll break these things down to you. And it usually takes me about 60 to 90 minutes to get through the whole thing. I want… Very, very thorough on these things.
I want you to understand what to expect, what’s working, what isn’t. I want you to understand how this whole thing works so that you can make good, informed and intelligent decisions here in the Rochester area. So always just reach out to me directly if you wanna get directly into that. The first thing I always go with people are the different financial options that are available to you. There are seven basic forms of financing, within each of these, there are different variances within that. And different banks offer different rates, different terms, different costs, different options, different programs. There’s also many low down payment options. I’ve seen grants and loan programs from the state that actually help out buyers, these are very, very real programs. I’ve seen people buy houses for less than a thousand dollars out of pocket.
Many of my clients, I would say, have actually purchased properties with less than 3% down, this is a very, very common thing. And if you’re not really paying attention to what different options are available to you, you might end up paying a lot more money in out-of-pocket expenses. I’ve seen people pay tens of thousands of dollars more in out-of-pocket expenses if they had just known about a different program that could actually help them out. And they are just as competitive in the marketplace as many other financing options as well. Further, if you don’t understand how these all things fit together, you might make some mistakes as far as estimating what you can expect for your monthly payment. This is a very big part of making sure you’re getting good deals.
Well, I always tell people, “There’s no point in us getting a really great deal on the purchase price just for you to turn around and overpay on the mortgage.” We wanna make sure they’re paying attention to these things and you understand how insurance is and taxes and all that stuff fits together, which brings me to the second element which is understanding what makes up a mortgage payment. If you are purchasing here in the Rochester area you gotta understand that there’s going to be taxes. There’s going to be insurances. There’s going to be mortgage insurance if you’re putting less than 20% down in many situations, not every situation, the financing is the same, we wanna make sure you understand at least the basics of what’s going to make up your mortgage payment. That way you can have good, sound information moving forward as you decide which house is ultimately going to be the right fit for you. If you don’t understand how those things all fit together and how escrow accounts can fit, you might make some mistakes on, and end up paying hundreds of dollars more a month on your payment, which doesn’t really help out anyone.
Definitely just reach out to me and I can always break those things down a little bit more thorough, but in this video I wanna make it as short as I can anyways, for you to kind of get some of the elements of this.
But I wanna make sure people aren’t overextending themselves, right? How do you actually shop for homes for sale? You know, I always tell people the very first thing that you should do before we actually go look at any property, is make sure that you either have a preapproval letter or a proof of funds letter. This is just a one-page document that you can get from a loan officer. I encourage people to reach out to me directly before we actually have them talk to a bank. in my experience, it’s better for me to know a little bit about your situation, that way I can set you up with a good loan officer who I know is gonna be able to get you a better deal. You know, I’ve worked with hundreds of clients here in the Rochester area, so I know which ones are gonna be better fit for my clients. I just have that firsthand experience doing it.
From there, actually, ultimately, how do you actually shop for good homes that are available in the Rochester area? If you’ve just been looking online, you’ve been looking at these online home search engines, understand a lot of those can be a week to two weeks and sometimes even months outdated. There’s a lot of inaccurate information on those things and they’re based off of large geographical algorithms. And if you’re not specific to the local Rochester area, you might be missing out on properties that may have come onto the market. I wanna make sure that people are actually looking at things that are actually available. From there, I’ll talk about a little bit more about what we do when we line up showings. You know, with me as buyer’s agent, I can usually knock out three to four showings inside of an hour with a client if they’re all in the kind of same geographical area, but it’s much more efficient to reach out to me to go look at properties than it is to be calling each independent listing agent. And in my experience, I wanna make this very, very clear to people. It is not in your interest to reach out to the listing agent on a property that you are interested. They represent the seller. They don’t represent you. As a person who represents a lot of sellers here in Rochester, I would much rather represent the seller in my corner and have the buyer work with the buyer’s agent on the other side of the transaction, it just makes the relationship and everything fit so much smoother. So I really strongly encourage people to get buyer’s agents. If you are looking to purchase in the Rochester area, try to stay…
Have someone represent you on on your side of the transaction as well, if that makes sense. Finally, fourth thing, how do you make a winning offer? You know, I cover different things from what to make for an offer price, you know, what sort of contingencies to include those things, different terms, making sure you understand the financing and what kind of goes into those things. And really how you pair up in the competition. We don’t always know what the other offers are on a property, but it is good for us to have an idea of what they could ultimately be so you can make some good decisions around those things as well, as far as closing dates and lining that up as well. And then finally, you know, what actually happens in negotiations? I think there’s a lot of agents out there that throw this word around, saying that they are experts in negotiations. I have multiple credentials in this area. I have awards, I’ve negotiated hundreds of real estate contracts over the course of many years. And I have a team here in Rochester. Who’s also negotiating contracts every single day. So it’s definitely something that I know what is actually working in, but I wanna make sure that people understand what is actually happening in the room where it actually all takes place, right?
Finally, what happens contract to close and many markets, 30% of transactions will fall through. And here in Rochester, we are not immune to this. But in my experience, if you understand the hurdles and what to expect, this is going to make you a much more attractive buyer to a seller. In fact, over the years, I’ve had many listing agents and sellers say that they would rather work with my clients over many other buyers, because they know that my clients are educated on the process. My core values are education, communication, responsiveness. You can watch that in all my videos. You can read that in my reviews. That’s something I’m very, very clear about. I want my people to understand what to expect so that we have a much better likelihood of getting to the closing table, ultimately making you successful.
So I know I covered a lot of information in a very very short amount of time. I can definitely get you up to speed quickly on what’s working here in the Rochester area, whatever time it is. You know, the market is always volatile. Different things are happening at different times. There are market shifts, market changes. I’m seeing them from a week-to-week basis, but I could definitely let you know what’s working here in the Rochester area. I encourage you, reach out to me directly. I will include my cell phone number I believe somewhere over here and also include it down below. You can reach out to me directly. I do respond fast. I am working real estate today if you’re watching this video, and I’m in a hurry to serve.
So I look forward hopefully working with you here some time down the road.
