Happy Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

Today we could go to the office with our halloween costumes!!! I'm not used to this, but going with the spirit of the fun in the office, I tried a little something:

Around half the office dressed up, but I won't post their pictures without their consent, now, this one was SOOO good that I couldn't stop myself xD

The inspection

The inspection was really really interesting and we learned lots of different things. Normally an inspection is made to the house just to see what problems it has and the client (the buyer) has to decide if (s)he wants the house or negotiate repairs or a lower price.

The inspection includes looking for humidity, cracks on the walls, floor or ceiling, check if the furnace and air conditioning are working, check if all included electric ampliances are working (fridge, kitchen, dishwasher, etc).

They also check whatever they can access from the electric instalation and the plumming, the attic to check the ceiling of the house, water preassure, roofs and whatever they can see about the fundations of the house.

One of the important things to remember is that they can't break anything, so they wont break the walls to see if the plumming is ok (for example) and they can't never ever be 100% sure that everything is working perfectly, but they can always give you a better idea of what you are buying and if everything appears to be in working condition.

Our inspector is reaaaally good, since he is from Argentina the inspection was in spanish, and he explained EVERYTHING he did and how everything worked, like how to change the filter of the furnace, how to control the air conditioning, how to see if the roofs need repairs, and lots of other things :D

The cost? $320 payable with check, and besides the confort of knowing that our house is above average and the great class we got, he gave us that big folder where it explains in much more detail what we need to know about Canadian houses and the kind of things we need to do every month/year. :)

Making an offer

Now that you fell in love with a house, what do you do? You make an offer! An offer may become your final contract to buy the house, so make sure is well done; if you are using a realtor, great! they help you with that, if you are not, sorry but I'm not sure how do you do it by yourself.

The case is that the price the sellers are asking is not exactly the price that you pay, it may be more, it may be less, so you have to be prepared when you find THE house and stablish a final price for you. This is easier to explain with examples:

The first house we liked and wanted to make an offer was listed for $320.000, so we offered $308.000 (which was the price a similar house got sold a month before) and a few repairs that needed to be done. The seller sent it back for $318.000 and no repairs (final offer), so we decided not to buy it; it was too expensive for what it was.

Then, when we fell in love with our house, the listing price was $339.900 (a month before was $344.900), so we went to our realtor's office and saw similar houses in the same area to compare prices and see how much we could offer for the house, and he recommended us to offer $329.000, with a closing date of November 28 (the sellers were asking for October) and a deposit of $5000, and the house had to pass the inspection to our satisfaction.

We sent the offer and we had to wait for their answer, when we got it was $336.000, they accepted the closing date, changed the deposit to $10.000 and agreed to the inspection. Now we could have sent another contra-offer on top of that one but decided to accept :D So that was the beginning of our contract and our final price!!!

In other cases, you will see yourself paying more than the asking price if you have other people fighting for that house too. I have a friend that was buying an apartment, she made an offer and the seller communicated saying no to that offer and that they had another offer they were considering (they don't tell you for how much) so you need to send a higher offer to win the house. I think this one is really stressfull!!!

Another example is a friend that found her dream home. The house was listed at $349.900, she offered $332.000 (aprox. I don't remember this one exactly), they got it back for $345.000 and they sent it back for $340.000 (final offer), and the sellers accepted!!! :D So in this case, she managed to buy for $10.000 less than the listed price and the sellers where the ones to accept the offer.

There you have it, how close are the real prices to the listed prices and what you can expect to happen when making an offer for a house ;) Next step, the inspection!