Joandripple

Hi Guys,

Hopefully my family and I will have a successful interview on 17th and we can start our moving process for real!

I have loads of questions but the main one at the moment is how the house buying process works in the US? We are fortunate to be able to purchase outright without a mortgage and was wondering how to start. We have seen a few properties on line. Do we have to instruct any agents etc. Obviously here in UK you can just go into an estate agents, look at what they have, view then make an offer. Is it the same in the US. Or do we need to appoint someone? Sorry to sound rather blonde!

Thanks for any replies. Jo

petitefrancaise

First thing is to contact an agent to get you postings from the MLS database. All the agents have access to this one. Then you can get an idea of prices etc.
Zillow was good too.

Pulaski

Honestly, you need a buyer's agent. You could buy without one, but I don't recommend it, and in any case the buyer's agent is paid for by a cut of the seller's agent commission. The buyer's agent will hold your hand through the entire process and should be able to point out the issues with any particular neighborhood that has houses you're interested in.

Contact a realtor in the area you are interested in and tell them you need a buyer's agent, or get a recommend from someone here on BE if they know a buyer's agent in the area you are looking to buy.

Joandripple

Thank you so much, I was under the impression that we needed an agent of some sort and you've pointed me in the correct direction.

petitefrancaise

You can't get onto the MLS database without going through an agent, you don't need to sign anything just to get listings though.

MsElui lives in Dallas and I think she recently bought a house so she may be along to give you a recommendation. Although it's better to get one that knows your area really well, so perhaps ask around at work?

Going through an agent shouldn't cost you anything at all. The seller's agent will split their commission with your buyer's agent.
You will have to pay a smallish deposit to show you are serious about a house, you will also need to get a housebuyer's survey done but the great thing about that is that once issues have been identified then you can ask the seller to put it right at no cost to you before you go ahead with the sale.

Without having to bother about a mortgage your sale can go through in a few weeks.

Joandripple

Thanks for that, I was thinking of PMing MsElui as I think she may know the area we are looking at and may recommend and agent. Thank you x

Pulaski

Which IMO is the worst thing to do, because they will do the cheapest fix/patch/botch they can, often with poor materials and cheap labour. For example if the water heater is on its last legs, and you tell them to replace it, you'll get a cheap one that is not high efficiency and has a short warranty when for a little more you could get a high efficiency model with a lifetime warranty. ..... Much better to ask for a price reduction and get repairs done your self with quality materials and experienced labour.

petitefrancaise

Yeah, Pulaski is right (). We got them to do some stuff and we organised other things ourselves. My biggest fear was that my dear darling husband would attempt to do things himself ........and I would be waiting for a looonnnggg time!

Bob

One thing to consider, how much more expensive it is to sell a gaff over here, so if you've not lived in the area a while, it might be worth renting for a bit. If nothing else, to see how the change in life style works for you and figuring out the types of maintenance.

That said, if you are going to buy, it's probably best asking locals for recommendations on an agent and use one as you've got nothing to lose really.

petitefrancaise

Taxes?
I'm not the expert here but will the OP have to take into consideration any taxes due because of the house sale in the uk? If they're buying a house outright in Dallas I'm assuming they have a fair bit of cash. Capital Gains?

Property Tax in Texas is a bit scary - checkout very carefully how much this will be for you. If it seems lower than other houses it won't be the rate you are paying. Ours is over $10k pa but was $3.5 for the previous owners because they had been here so long.

Michael

Zillow and many other web sites include the compete listing from the MLS database which includes probably over 99% of homes for sale in the US. Even "For Sale By Owner" homes are usually listed in the MLS database since it is very inexpensive to list on the MLS (about $100 for 6 months).

About the only information that individuals usually don't have access to in the MLS database is related to how commissions are split and often "For Sale By Owner" won't pay agent commissions so buying agents won't show those homes.

Occasionally a seller will give an exclusive listing to a brokerage (not in the MLS) but that is uncommon.

MsElui

im here

We bought a year ago in McKinney - but looked right across Allen, Prosper, Frisco, Plano etc. I can recommend a realtor as ours was superb. You tell them what you are looking for (ie x bedrooms, x garage, pool, no pool, , study, yard etc etc, and price range. The more specific you can be the better. If you find as you go along that you dont like something you see (ie a kitchen with a stove top in the island) then tell them that too and they can add that into their searches going forward.

We had previously looked on zillow.com but found many things listed there were in fact already sold, and our realtor found houses not on zillow as 'for sale' that were great (including the one we ended up buying). However, zillow allowed us to scope areas, get ideas about 'typical' layouts, texas styles, price ranges, and school areas and ratings so its worth a look but just know its not up to date.

They can then search the MLS system and give you a list of anything that falls in the criteria. The list will contain links for you to go see more details and pictures if they are available. Look at those lists and cull out the ones that immediately don't agree with you. (for us as an example we had very strong feelings about not living next to power lines so could quickly cull many properties from the pictures).

Our realtor also gave us advice on what was 'important' within Texas for a resale point of view. Ie a downstairs master is a GREAT resale feature that i personally dont care about - but went along with as we want to be able to resell in the future at some point). When we built our home in Ohio before we came to texas we fell foul to many 'mistakes' that made the house perfect for us to live in but hard to sell to locals, so i would take their advice where possible as you don't want to get stuck in the future if things change (like for us an unexpected job change meant a change of state!!).

Once you have shortlisted some homes from the list - then tell the realtor and they will schedule viewings. we typically did 4-5 a day - driving in convoy between the various homes. When we looked in Ohio 7 years ago we were doing 10+ a day for several days and it was exhausting and they all started to blur into the same thing and it was really hard to keep them distinct and make decisions (so make a few notes on a pad after EVERY viewing - just a few good and bad points and anything notable (the one with the weird purple room., or the one with the pool with a slide, whatever can help you remember that house a little better a few weeks later when you are comparing). Your relator should be able to point out things to you as you look around, like cracks, or things likely needing work etc. This helped us make a judgement as to what was a fair price in our minds or what would require a lot of work to remediate.

Our relator was able to do comparisons on the homes we liked most to see what had sold recently in the same neighborhoods/areas for similar sizes and give us a view on the relative price level - so we could judge if it was under or over priced and consider that when we wanted to make an offer.

putting in an offer is totally different from the UK. Here you create a multiple page 'offer document' stating the price you will offer - the date you will complete on (typically 30 days) and many other features and nuances that its best to get a realtor to explain. We used those legal features EXTENSIVELY during our sale as the seller tried to pull out for a better offer using clauses and we were able to use other clauses to keep it on track and we did end up with the house we wanted despite it being very stressful (part of that was due to a delay in funds arriving from england).

i am happy to talk about any of this in more detail if you want - or pass the name of our fantastic realtor. just pm me and i can send you my email address etc so we can talk more.

MsElui

one thing i would add is - the nice homes round here in north dallas area are moving very fast for the past year or so. so get as much advanced idea of what's around from sites like zillow so that you are ready to be specific about your criteria when you talk to the realtor.

some homes are going on the market, being viewed in the first couple of days and then having offers within a day. so if you start to do viewings you may need to act quickly if you see something you like. You have an immense advantage in being a cash sale as buyers could well chose your lower or similar offer over others who have the whole mortgage process to dance with too. Sometimes cash buyers will forgo the survey as another incentive - but i would strongly recommend against that - know what you are buying (warts and all). You may decide to take no action on the report (we essentially had to forgo taking any action in order to force the sale through - but we did that knowing the actions were in reality quite minor so we were not in for a nasty surprise).

Pulaski

Take your camera/ phone and at each house take a photo of the house number on the mail box, then lots of photos of things you like, or don't like, as you tour each house.

MsElui

typically MLS has enough photos, they just all begin to look similar after a while so you need to remember the stand out thing.