Closing Costs - Don't Settle

[Pj Crescenzo]

A lot of first time buyers seem to drop their jaw when they see the breakdown of closing costs & how much money can be needed out of pocket.... We recommend finding & partnering with the right agent, to get closing costs negotiated upfront. In most cases, there is always an option to build closing costs into the sales price as long as the property will appraise & this can save a first time home buyer THOUSANDS without having to come out of pocket & without impacting the monthly payment more than 10-15 dollars a month. 

[Dan Maciejewski]

Not sure about your market but houses in mine are selling at or above appraised value.  There's no room to finance closing costs.  Even crappy houses are selling to cash investors.

A term that's starting to come up is buyers paying for seller's closing costs.

So a low money down buyer with no cash to cover their own costs is going to lose out 9/10 times.  We're advising against low DP just because they're going to have to change their offer price if there's an appraisal issue.  Plus they will want to negotiate repair items on an As-Is offer.  Not going to be able to compete with a 30% down, waived appraisal, no inspections offer, unfortunately.

The stat for Tampa Metro is that we're only at 45% multiple offers, but in Pinellas, it's much higher.  A majority of properly priced houses are getting multiple offers within 12-24 hours.  In the 300-350 price range, we have a median of 8 days on market.  That's including the stinkers that sat for a week or two.  All price ranges up to and above 500k look similar,.

You're doing your clients a disservice by not telling them what the market looks like.  I always run current numbers so my buyers know what to expect when starting their search and what to expect when writing offers.  

And I always show them the estimated closing costs up front, when beginning their search.  

It is about finding the right agent.  And the right agent is one that tells you what the hyper-local market is like today.  One that knows their numbers.