No matter how cool, calm and collected you feel when you’re writing up your “needs and wants” list for your next home, when you find actually the perfect home for you, things seem to start moving very quickly. Paperwork starts flying at you and emotions are supercharged!

As a Realtor, there’s no better feeling than knowing that you’ve just found the perfect home for your client. I want you to feel ecstatic about the home that you’re hoping to buy, but I also want you to feel confident and assured that you’re going into the process fully prepared.

When you’ve decided that it’s time to start looking for a home, we’ll get together and go through a comprehensive Step-by-Step Plan that covers the entire process before we begin our search. I’ve outlined the meeting’s agenda below, to give you some insight as to what we’ll cover at our initial meeting:

Objectives

• Interview process to obtain a clear understanding of your goals, objectives, priorities, budget, timelines, expectations and lifestyle.

The Buying Process

• Explain the Customer Service Representation Guide (who works for whom in a real estate transaction).
• Potential conflicts of interest.
• My role as your Real Estate Professional from this point to key release (and beyond).

The Buyer’s Representation Agreement

• Detailed explanation of what services you can expect from me
• How I get paid
• Our agreement to work with each other

The Purchase Contract

• A before-hand explanation of the purchase agreement that you’ll be entering into when we do find thehome you want to live in.
• Explanation of the types of terms and conditions we could incorporate into the purchase contract to protect your interests.
• Understanding the Buyer’s and  Seller’s obligations to each other with respect to the purchase agreement.
• Provide you with a blank copy of purchase agreement and other relevant documents to take home with you so you can read at your leisure.

The Mortgage Pre-Approval

• Obtain a clear understanding of what price range you should be shopping in, guarantee yourself the best possible rate ahead of time, know approximately what your payments will be, understand the benefits and detriments of various payment frequencies pre-payment options.

The Search

• Choose the communities, styles, features, wants and needs for your next home.
• Receive an initial package of available homes that fall within your search parameters.
• Set you up to receive real-time notifications of new listings as soon as they hit the market (same time as Realtors find out about them).
• Learn as we go (get a good sense of varying styles of homes, floor plans, red flags, aspects of a home and its location that would positively or negatively affect future resale value).
• View homes at any pace you set.

The Pause We Take To Ask Questions Before Making An Offer

• Does this home feel right for you?
• Are you relying too much on emotion instead of logic?
• Should we look at more homes before we commit?
• Does this home support and accommodate your lifestyle?
• Is the home priced correctly?
• Will this home be easy to sell in the future?
• How do we assess the home’s structural integrity?
• How do we ensure that the home, deck, shed, garage and fence comply with municipal bylaws?

The Offer Writing And Negotiation

• Know what the seller knows (be up-to-date on recent neighbourhood sales activity of comparable homes).
• What’s the best price to offer?
• What terms and conditions should we insist on?
• What negotiating strategy is the seller using and what’s the best way to respond to it?
• Make sure that the offer is properly written with clear and concise language so we’re not leaving any room for miscommunications, misunderstandings and assumptions.

Behind The Scenes

• Provide you with a good sense of the flow of events that takes place behind the scenes (communication with lenders, lawyers, appraisers, cooperating brokers, municipalities, etc., in order to facilitate a successful closing).