Purchasing property without agent

[Sergio Aguinaga]

Hello everyone, I was just curious to see if there are any guides out there for buying a property that’s not on the mls with an agent. Let’s say I find a motivated seller, we want to get get the deal going and we are set on the price, what’s next? I do know that I can get an official purchase and sale agreement from my local title company. Should an attorney look at it? I’d assume not. But what else is there to it apart from the P&S agreement. Is there a process to follow for someone that has never purchased a house this way or some sort of checklist. Any advice helps. thank you.

[Alan Pederson]

I thought the same thing. You could save money doing things yourself but you could also lose big if you mess anything up. I've purchased 6 houses and feel pretty good about what needs to be done. Getting an agent (even a discount agent) would give you peace of mind that things were done right. Kind of like  an insurance policy.

In the contract, it spells out who pays for what. Prepaid taxes, document fees, etc...

You also have sellers disclosure, inspection, appraisal, etc.

The last house we bought I represented myself and the seller had an agent. I was very nervous but took care of everything myself. Making phone calls and setting up appointments. We ran into a problem because the roof was bad and mortgage company wouldn't finance because insurance company wouldn't insure house with the current roof. I had to go back to seller and insist that they replace the roof before we moved forward. Then I had to get roof company to send paperwork to mortgage company once they finished and have insurance company come back out to inspect again prior to closing. It was a crazy couple of weeks and very stressful dealing with this and working full time.