Matthew Maschler:
Welcome back to the Real Estate Finder podcast. I’m Matthew Maschler, real Estate finder@realestatefinder.com.
Staci Garcia:
And I’m Stacy
Matthew Maschler:
Garcia. And for the third week in a row,
Staci Garcia:
Jill Glanzer.
Matthew Maschler:
Hi, Jill. How are you? I’m
Staci Garcia:
Doing
Matthew Maschler:
Great. All right. All right. So, um, two weeks ago, uh, we started a, uh, a podcast episode of the, the seller’s side of the transaction. How do, how do you start as a, as a real estate agent working with a seller, how does the whole process start? Uh, and we started about the additional consultation, viewing the house, the listing agreement. We took that, uh, all the way to, uh, getting an offer. And then we had to continue last week from getting an offer, uh, to getting it closed. And then, uh, we decided that we had so much fun doing that. Uh, we wanna start the buyer side of the transaction, right? What happens on what is our perspective when a buyer calls up and says, hi, Jill. Um, I just spoke to Matt and he told me to call you, and I am looking for a place to buy in Florida.
Staci Garcia:
Great. Can you tell me a little bit about why you’re moving and what you’re looking for?
Matthew Maschler:
You know, everybody’s Florida dream’s a little bit different, right? So I I, I need, I need to get out of them. What do they want from Florida? Right? Do they, do they wanna be by the beach? Do they wanna play golf? Do they wanna play cards? Do they wanna play tennis? Do they wanna beat in 55 over? So I, I asked them like, what’s, what’s your wish? Right? What’s your, you know, if you had a magic wand, right? What, what is your dream? And Florida’s a big state, so sometimes, you know, some, a lot of people, you know, they want Boca, A lot of the, you know, the, the New Yorkers or New Jersey want Boca, but Florida’s much bigger than Boca. Some people want Miami. Some people, some people don’t know what they want, right? Um, is proximity to a major airport important? And that’s a consideration that if people don’t really know the know Florida, that they have to really think about it.
Because when you’re in, you know, northwest part of Florida, really, you know, anything north of West Palm Beach, if you’re in like Vero Beach or anything north of that, you know, you may have difficulties getting to an airport. I mean, you have Jacksonville, um, so you have to really, you, you have four major regions with, with airports, right? You have Miami, Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville. There’s some other smaller airports, and I guess there’s one on the, on the panhandle now. Um, but inter international, like if you’re trying to get to Europe, you know, if you’re English and you have a house in, you want a house in Florida, you really gotta be, be be based outta South Florida, because I don’t know Tampa, there’s nothing to England or France. I don’t know about Orlando. Orlando must, and I don’t think Jacksonville has too much. So, um, so Miami could be a lot more popular with, with Europeans.
Tampa and the West Coast could be a lot more popular with people from the Midwest and the west coast of the us. If you’re gonna travel back and forth to California or Ohio or Chicago or Texas, you know, Tampa’s gonna serve that Tampa airport that’s gonna serve you really, really well. And, you know, the Gulf Coast of, of Florida, the west side of Florida, it’s a beautiful water and beautiful beaches. They b they both do, but, um, some people prefer the Gulf side. So yeah, Atlantic Atlantic side versus the Gulf side. Airports, transportations, you know, what, what is the Florida Dream mean to you? Some people really wanna be close to Disney World, so you have to really get that out from someone. You know, there’s a, we wanna move to Florida. Well, where do you wanna live in Florida? And even something as specific as where we are in Boca Raton, there’s condos on the water, and there’s, you know, houses and country clubs. There’s condos and country clubs too. So what’s important, what do you want to do? What is, what is the Florida dream
Jill Glanzer:
And what’s their price point?
Matthew Maschler:
And what is their price point?
Jill Glanzer:
Because they might be limited in a bit. Yeah. Like I have a client that’s coming from somewhere in the Midwest at Missouri mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, um, they are at a million dollars and wanna be with the feet in the sand. Yeah. And that seems like a really easy thing to find. Used to
Matthew Maschler:
Be. Yeah.
Jill Glanzer:
But now it’s not. Right. So, um, you’re going, we might go from the South Florida area, um, north, or we have to go to the West Coast and find something, you know? Uh, and if you have a place that’s a million dollars on the beach, and even if it needs to be fixed up, let me know. Cuz I’m looking for these
Matthew Maschler:
Clients. Yeah. I, I think you have to go to the West Coast and you have to kind of go north of Tampa anywhere up into the panhandle. So, um, you know, and then this, you should be able to find it. But, but then again, airports and transportation and other things might, well,
Jill Glanzer:
Those things might not, might be on a, and to the, to this, um, client for them, uh, they wanna walk to, uh, like a acute village. Uhhuh. <affirmative>. And so Delray used to be that way here. Yeah. And it’s now unaffordable mm-hmm. <affirmative> and for them, and, uh, I think Lake Worth is a bit like that, but maybe is not as close to the beach where they can really sit with their feet in the sand. And so, um, price is a major factor. Price. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And do they have pets?
Matthew Maschler:
Pets is very important. There’s a lot of communities and especially condo buildings that don’t allow pets. That’s definitely something that’s very important. Our school’s
Jill Glanzer:
Important,
Matthew Maschler:
So we’re gonna find you some properties. We’re gonna, we’re gonna email you them. The more you communicate with us, the better it is. Uh, the more you tell us what you like, what you don’t like, the easier it is going to be for us to continue to find it. We’re gonna constantly be looking, constantly looking on the mls, constantly be talking to our network, but the more we hear from you, um, you know, if you see something you like online, let us know. Don’t call, let call that agent. Don’t call that website or, or, or that agent. You’ll, you’ll go around in circles, let us know. And, and we could, we, we could tell you, Hey, hey, look, you know, we, you, you told us you wanted, these, these four things were important. You’re looking at something that doesn’t allow pets. Right? We, we could screen that out. We, we,
Jill Glanzer:
For you, we things in the broker’s remarks that you can’t see also, right? So we wanna, and, and, and I wanna emphasize this, and I rarely talk about it. So everybody’s looking on Zillow all the time, and they don’t really know that they’re not looking at something in the real time. So something could have been pending a couple days ago, they don’t know. And they’re like, can we see this place? And it’s not available anymore. One of my favorite things to do about real estate in real estate is, is not actually real estate related. It’s looking for things like a needle in a haystack and finding it. I love finding something for, you know, it’s like a word puzzle for me. So if you tell me what you want, and the more complicated it is, and if I can find it, I feel like I just, I did my job. Right. The rest of it is also part of my job, but this is my favorite part of the job is finding it. Yeah. So, um, I get very excited if someone’s won something really specific mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because then I’m like, okay, the more specific they are, the better I am at finding it. Right.
Matthew Maschler:
See, the mul, the multiple listing service is a, is a, a function of the realtors association, but there’s more than one realtor association. And so there’s more than one multiple listing service. And if you think of the multiple listing service as a database, and then we have a, a, a program, a software where we can view our database. But in Palm Beach County, there are three different MLSs two play Nice together, one doesn’t, uh, and it has, you know, excludes the results from the other two d uh, programs. But when you have these websites that aggregate all of the different listings, they’re taking different fields from different databases and sometimes they don’t match up. So you can lose information in the, in, you know, because someone in in in Tampa can list a house in Boca and that’ll syndicate to the online, um, uh, websites.
It doesn’t happen, but it can happen and it’ll syndicate to the online websites, but it may look a little bit different and you’ll lose some of the information and then the local agents won’t have access to it because it’s from an out of, out-of-state mls. So sometimes the stuff that you see online, you’re, you’re, you are missing fields, some, and not, not all of the fields are visible to the public, and not all the fields are, are displayed properly on the aggregator websites. Um, so not, so not just for us to tell you why that house doesn’t work for you, but also so we could find houses like that and find more houses like that.
Jill Glanzer:
And then also, if you’re seeing something that seems too good to be true, especially in South Florida, it’s usually because it’s, um, H O P A housing for older people. And, um, I think that a lot of people contact me and say, I saw all these houses and they’re really expensive, but there’s one Right. That’s like $300,000 less than all the
Matthew Maschler:
Others. Right? So it’s either in a mandatory membership country club Right. Or in an age restricted community.
Jill Glanzer:
Yeah. So they don’t see that at field in what they’re looking for.
Matthew Maschler:
Right. Because that’s just not a, the aggregators don’t have that field on their software because they’re a nationwide website, so they don’t pick up And
Jill Glanzer:
That’s not common in other places.
Matthew Maschler:
Exactly. Right, right, right. So, so that field doesn’t always, always get picked up. So it’s important for, for, for you to let us know what you like. We’re gonna, we’re gonna send you properties. We have some automated systems to send you properties, um, with, with a much, with much more detailed search criteria than, than the aggregators will send you other websites that, other properties that we see. It’s just important to communicate back what you like, what you don’t like. And, and you know, we never know how aggressive to be, cuz we never know what you guys are thinking, right? A lot of couples are looking for real estate and you know, they’re talking to each other. They’re talking to each other and there’s some pillow talk talking to each other. But we’re not always updated when the search criteria changes. So if you change your search criteria, just let us know.
It’s not a problem to tell us that, Hey, I, you know, originally we said this, but now we wanna change to that. Just let us know. We’re happy to make any adjustments to our searches. What we’re thinking of in our minds, what we’re talking to our networks about. So as a buyer, um, it’s, you’re never bothering us. You wanna see a house, we let us know and we will come see it with you. That is our job. That is what we love to do. You’re never bothering us. Don’t think that we don’t wanna show you something. If you wanna see new construction, we’re happy to take you to see new construction. We always want to come with you. We never don’t want to come with you. So never think you’re bothering us. It’s a very important thing, uh, that we want our buyers to know. Right? Yes, a hundred percent. You’re both, everybody’s nodding along, but I don’t like to be filmed. So this podcast is audio only. So <laugh>
Staci Garcia:
Like, even, even if you wanna go to an open house on the weekend, and I totally get that to, to experience new neighborhoods, I’m happy to attend those with you. Yeah. Because it helps me to get to know what you want and don’t want more, the more time I spend with you.
Matthew Maschler:
Right, right, right. And um, and if you go to an open house without us, that’s fine. Just let the, let the listing agent know that you’re working with us. And that’s fine. That’s fine too. And let us, and let us know what you think. Right. Let us, yeah, so if you find a property that you like, we’re gonna draft an offer. We talked a lot in the last couple weeks about the as-is contract, uh, the, the those same terms that we talked about, uh, two weeks ago in episode one. Uh, the same terms of what we’re looking for in, uh, as sellers when we receive an offer. Those are the terms we wanna discuss when you make your offer. So we’re gonna go through, uh, we’re gonna go through that again. We’re gonna make an offer. We have to talk about the price. Uh, we have to talk about, um, uh, the closing dates.
Uh, how are you gonna pay for it? Are you gonna pay cash? Are you gonna get a financing? Uh, we have to talk about the deposit. You really wanna show as big a deposit as you can, uh, to make the offer, uh, look strong for your seller. Um, you, you as a buyer, you get to choose the escrow agent in Palm Beach County. Generally the sellers choose the title company, uh, the closing agent. Uh, I sometimes recommend my buyer pays for that, uh, and chooses, pays and chooses. But, but, um, but the buyer writes the offer. So the buyer can say who pays and chooses for the title company and the buyer names the escrow agent. Uh, at signature, we usually name, uh, signature title as the escrow agent, uh, an inspection period, strongly advised to get an inspection on our property and any additional terms. Um, and that’s what we come up, uh, with. We come up with these terms, we’ll craft these terms together when we make our offer. Alright, if the offer is accepted or countered, then we’ll discuss that. So what happens, Jill, once the offer’s accepted, accepted, what, what does the buyer have to do?
Staci Garcia:
Well, once the offer’s accepted, you’re now in your inspection period if there’s an inspection period and you really have to schedule your inspection. Okay. So you schedule your inspection and I would recommend that you go to the inspection if you’re in town. So that way that inspector can not only point out defects, but also point out how to use certain things in the house or the different features of the house. And then you’re, you have a little bit more time to like, explore the house, make sure it’s a house that you want to live in that makes you feel happy and at home. So definitely attend the inspection. Um, usually within three days of signing the contract, you have to make your first deposit. So you definitely have to do that in accordance with the contract. So you have to be aware of that and get your wire instructions and make sure that you wire your first deposit so that you’re, you’re doing everything as per the contract and you’re not doing anything where you’re not performing.
Um, so you do your inspection, you, you make your first deposit, and then if there’s any inspection issues, your buyer’s agent should negotiate those issues with the sell, with the listing agent, the seller. Um, if, let’s say you have an issue with, you know, an appliance doesn’t work, so the question normally I would say ask for a credit because you don’t really wanna ask them to fix it because you don’t know how they’re gonna fix it. You don’t know if it’s gonna be fixed to your liking. So I like to ask for credits. Um, most, a lot of times on the inspection report, there’ll be a price. Sometimes it’s a little bit higher than what it would actually cost to fix. Other times there is no price. And you may have to get other vendors in during the inspection period to figure out what kind of credit you wanna ask for. Um, I recommend having several different types of inspections, home inspections, mold inspections cuz you’re in Florida, get a mold inspection, you’re buying the most expensive thing you’re going to buy in your lifetime. Make sure you get all the inspections so that you know it’s a good investment for you and that there’s no underlying issues that you did not know about.
Matthew Maschler:
Another inspection I’d like to add is I have, um, uh, one of my vendors works with a d t and he can inspect the alarm system. That’s something that people, uh, don’t often, uh, check. But you want to, you know, it can be expensive to, uh, reinstall an alarm system if the listing says that there’s an alarm, you want to kind of see what it is and see, make sure all the wires are, are figured out. And I don’t know that inspectors check that alarm system. So that could be, that’s another thing
Staci Garcia:
I don’t think they do. So yeah, I think that’s a great idea. So again, and if you want, let’s say, you know, there’s a problem with the roof and be on the regular home inspector, you wanna look into the roof and he, he, you get your report and you’re like, oh, there’s problems with the roof. Maybe I’ll get a roofer in. So you could get a couple of roofers in during your inspection period. So really inspect that property, make sure it is a good investment, make sure it’s a safe property for you to live in. Do
Jill Glanzer:
You, um, tell your buyers to come by later and check out the neighborhood after you’re with them? Yeah.
Matthew Maschler:
Yep. Absolutely. Do as many drive-bys as you want. Different times a day. Um, different days of the week, uh, really, you know, get to know that neighborhood. I, I find people will, will look, will go to the car dealer and check out a car more often than they’ll, right. Go to a house, check out a
Staci Garcia:
House, talk to the neighbors. If they’re out, how
Matthew Maschler:
Are we gonna pay for this house?
Staci Garcia:
How are you going to pay for this house? So the question is, you know, obviously at the beginning of the process, we wanna know, are you paying cash? Do you have to sell a house before you buy this one? And then what is the timeline on that? Or are you gonna finance and do you need, do you have a mortgage pre-approval letter? Have you talked to a lender? Because really that’s like the first step. You can’t really start looking until you know what your finance situation is. So even if you’re like, oh, I have great credit, I’m definitely, I’m gonna be fine. And then you start taking them out. And then they realize when they go to their mortgage lender that there’s an issue that they didn’t know about on their credit report. Now they’re not ready to buy. Now they need three to six months to buy, and now you’ve gotten their hopes up, they’re excited and they can’t buy.
So definitely know what, how you’re gonna finance this property prior to looking and understand what you can afford. Because there’s also HOA fees. Like, you know, if you’re going to a no HOA community, that’s fantastic and you should talk to Stacy <laugh>. But, um, you know that there’s no h hoa, the house is the ha is the price of the house, right? But some HOA communities have $350 a month or more HOA fees, and you have to really figure out can you afford that? So you have to talk to your lender about all of that and understand what the costs of living in this property are and can you afford it before you start looking? Because there’s a lot more factors than just the price of the house. Do you
Jill Glanzer:
Submit, if you’re, if you are the buyer, do you submit your, um, preapproval letter with your offer?
Staci Garcia:
Yes. Makes,
Jill Glanzer:
And if you’re paying cash, you submit your proof of
Staci Garcia:
Funds. Proof of funds, definitely all of that is so important for the realtor and for the buyer. You really have to, and especially in this market, you can’t submit an offer with nothing. You really have to have your ducks in a row and be able to prove that you can buy this property.
Matthew Maschler:
Yep. And then there’s, you know, I, one thing I’m not an expert on is mortgages. When you talk to any of the mortgage people that we will refer you to, they could go over all of your options. Uh, there’s VA loans, FHA loans, programs for new home buyers, programs for doctors. I don’t know any other profession that, that have, uh, special loans, but I know doctors have special loans. So you can go over all of your financing options, uh, with your lender, uh, with your mortgage broker. Um, and, and you really should do that, uh, well in advance. Uh, and if you’re comfortable, uh, with your mortgage and your financing contingencies and you wanted to make a cash offer, you’re still allowed. You’re allowed to make a cash offer. You’re still allowed to borrow money. Um, but you can make a cash offer if, if, to make it more acceptable to a seller in this market, um, and, and still get a mortgage. So it’s very important to, uh, to get your mortgage, uh, uh, documents in a row. Um, be, be approved for a mortgage, uh, when, and because when you submit an offer with a mortgage, that seller is going to want to, um, know about, uh, about that loan, any credit worthiness,
Jill Glanzer:
I I, I tell any buyer to, not to stalk the house, but to drive by at odd times, you know, later to see how the parking is, to see what’s going on. I had one buyer say, um, there were too many children and that was not where they wanted, you know, they wouldn’t have known when we saw the house because it was school time, but later in the afternoon or in the evening, they drove by and there were kids playing in the street. And right away she said, I don’t wanna live there. Um, and it’s not a, it’s not a, it’s no reflection on my buyer. She just was done with having a whole school playing in the street. And, uh, another thing that I find that’s really, really common in my neighborhood is every other corner is a bus stop. So if that bothers you, I mean, the bus stops at 5 55 in the morning, and then again at seven, and then again at nine <laugh>, you know, <laugh>.
So you hear the breaks of the bus and it slows down and you hear all the other and the kids playing. And, and I happen to live at a bus stop and I love it because my kids just walked outside and got on the bus, so they didn’t have to go anywhere. But if you’re not a, a parent or you don’t have kids in school, or you just want to have a quiet, you know, location, stalk the house bit at odd times and see how parking is and if it’s noisy or if there’s something about it that bothers you, that wouldn’t bother anyone else. But, you know, oh, we talked about this before, but if the planes are landing and you’re in the flight plan, or if on the landing pattern, or if you’re in the takeoff, you know, in Boca it’s especially, nobody would know it unless you were standing in the street and the plane was landing how loud it is to be standing in the street when a plane is landing. Some people don’t mind it at all. And it’s fascinating. They look up and they love it. And some people think it’s, it’s a terrible thing. So, um, that’s a couple of things that you wouldn’t know if you were a buyer. You’re only there for a couple minutes. So definitely go by and see and talk to the neighbors, like you said. So, um, what else? Anything else?
Matthew Maschler:
Um, okay, so you got your financing in, in a row. You got your inspections in a row, um, you got the title company, the which of Palm Beach in Palm Beach County. If the seller chose the title company, you wanna make sure you’re talking to the title company about your, um, about your property. And then, um, and then, then
Staci Garcia:
To go, well, you do have to know you, if it’s an hoa, make sure you read all the rules and regulations. We talked about it on the seller’s side, but in the buyer’s side, understand the rules and regs of that community and that you’re okay with them. Okay. Okay.
Matthew Maschler:
So, um, we’re gonna, we’re gonna end here. This was, uh, not a very long episode, but we have a, uh, listing appointment to go to in a few minutes. So, uh, apologize that it was a choice of either, uh, not doing a podcast this week or, um, doing a short one. So I think we, we did a short one and, um, not sure, uh, we’ll have to organize our thoughts to see if, if, uh, if we’re continue this subject.
Staci Garcia:
I mean, like, there’s only so many things that you can talk about on a buyer side. Yeah, maybe we could talk about the closing. Yeah. But
Matthew Maschler:
The, the whole closing process. Yeah. We’ll talk about the, all right. So next week we’ll talk about the, uh, the closing process. The, I wanna talk about the title H hoa, and closing process. Okay. All right. All right. All right. Thank you for joining us on the Real Estate Finder podcast. I’m Matthew Ler, www.realestatefinder.com.
Staci Garcia:
And I’m Stacey Garcia. And I’m Jill Glancer.
Speaker 4:
The future looks bright and the storms pass by the sky’s dark blue. When it’s almost that time, light shows cameras flash when I pass living in the moment, forget about the pass. They save the best for last. Matthew Mania. We about to make a splash. Life is a marathon full of sharp terms. Gotta keep pace while hands on the hot stakes. Five star real estate. I run a show. You can tell the place electricity, energy. I, I’m always going time, even if I’m, I make dreams come true. Living my life. Hope the same for you. Success in my sights got a real clear view. If you dunno the time, I’ll give you a clue.
Speaker 5:
You know what, you know what you know what you know what you know, what you know is, you know what, you know what you know what time. It’s, you know what song, know what, you know what it is.
Speaker 4:
You know what time. Its, you know, time. It, you know what time it, what time. Its, you know whose time it’s, you know what time It’s mania and time. It says, yeah. Got him shooked scared. Can look. We’re not afraid of a big bad wall. First comes the right.
