I Want To Make An Offer

MI Home Buyer
A Site for First-Time Home Buyers

Search for a Property

Real Estate Agency

About Historic Homes

Financing and Insuring

Real Estate Statistics

From our milfordteam.com site

Real Estate Information Links

About Us

Contact Me

Visit my blog

By Norm Werner

I think I like one particular house and may want to
make an offer for it, what’s next?

A - This is where your Realtor does some of his/her most critical work.

If you have settled upon a house that you think you would like to make an offer upon, inform your agent, so that he/she can do a Comparative Market Analysis on it and come up with a fair offer price. The agent will also procure the Seller’s Disclosure Statement, if you have not already seen it and let you look at the disclosures that the seller is making about the house. Sellers are required to truthfully list disclosure about anything that might materially affect the value of the house, such as known water damage or flooding, any known insect infestation that required

remediation, any mold problems that required remediation and information in many other categories. There is also a section in the Sellers Disclosure that asks him/her to state the condition of the house and the major systems in the house, such as the furnace and water heater. The Seller's Disclosure is a legal document, which provides the buyer legal remedies (including a complete refund on the deal) if it is discovered later that the seller made false statements. You should also check to see if there is a Home Owner Association (HOA) and as to see the Master Deed and By-Laws. For information on what to look for in the HOA By-Laws, check out this article on HOA CC & R’s.

If you haven't already done so, you should check out the other neighborhood factors that may still influence you - location of nearest shopping and eating facilities, location (and reputation) of the nearest schools, location of churches, and any other factors that could cause you to reconsider the area. This should be done with all possible haste, since you don't want to lose the house that you want just because you took to long to make up your mind(s). Use Goggle Local to help find most of this information. You can find any and all businesses within a specified range of a location immediately (and with a map) through this specialized Goggle search.

Next your Realtor should sit with you and go over the Purchase Agreement form with you. He/she should explain all of the paragraphs on the form and get the necessary information from you in order to fill out your Offer for the property. He/She will also go over any Addendum that will accompany the Offer and fill in the correct information on them. He/she should have you make out a check for 3% of the amount that you are offering. This is what is called "earnest money" and will be held in an escrow account by your agent until the time of closing, at which time it is applied against the total that you must pay for the house and closing. The earnest money is also what you are putting at risk to get the seller to accept your offer and take his/her house off the market. If you change your mind about buying the house after the seller has accepted your offer, you will loose the earnest money to the seller (which is normally split with his real estate agent).

Your Realtor will make sure that all the proper fields are filled in correctly on the Purchase Agreement and any Addendum and have you sign and initial the forms in the proper places. He/she will also make sure that you have signed and dated the Real Estate Agency form, the Seller's Disclosure form, the seller's Lead-Based Paint form and any other forms that need to accompany the Offer.