For a first-time home buyer, ending up with a money pit can be a nightmare. That’s why it’s crucial to ensure that home inspections are thorough, checking every nook for potential issues. But how do you know when and how to walk away from a deal? Here to guide you through the process is someone who has walked the very same shoes as you. First time home buyer Clarisse joins David Sidoni to share how she eventually found her dream home on the third attempt. With a keen eye for detail, she shares valuable insights into the importance of a robust inspection process and the necessity of not getting emotionally attached to properties. Clarice, who navigated the real estate landscape from Seattle to Dallas, provides practical tips for purchasing a home with a partner and sheds light on the nuances of acquiring an older resale home. Join us as she unfolds her experiences and lessons learned, offering a wealth of advice for those embarking on their own home-buying adventure.
—
Interview With Clarisse – Home Inspections: When And How To Walk Away From The Deal
First Time Home Buyer Tips From A REAL First Time Home Buyer
For lots of first-time home buyers out there, buying a money pit is their biggest fear. You end up buying a home, you’re excited about it, and everything starts to break, and it costs you tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars. Here’s an interview with Clarisse. She is a major planner. That was helpful in her process. She ended up buying the third house that she put an offer on. For the first two, she went through the inspection process.
Because she had a strong team helping her and supporting her along the way, the inspection was enough for her to pull out of the house and walk away. She realized that she and her partner decided not to get emotionally attached to anything and make sure the inspection was enough so that the home was what they wanted and something they could handle.
She also talks about moving from city to city. She was in Seattle when she was getting ready to buy a home in Dallas. There are some great tips on buying with a partner, buying an older home, and resale home in a section that we talked about called Buying a Unique Home versus a New Home. There’s a lot of great stuff here. Thank you to Clarisse for doing the interview.
—
Home Inspection: First Time Home Buyer Advice
We are here with another exciting interview for you. Clarisse and I met 25 seconds ago. We’re excited to have a chat right now. Clarisse, you know the drill. I like to ask people right away. You’re a first-time home buyer. It’s your first time through it. Give us some of your best advice for people out there who are reading this and who are hoping they can be like you someday.
My biggest piece of advice is when you’re working with your realtor, make sure that you have a good inspector, have an idea of some of the things that can come up in the inspection, and learn as much as you can about what a home needs. That was the biggest surprise and eye-opener for both my husband and me.
We were under contract for three houses. The third one was the charm, but in both inspections on the first house and the second house, we’re like, “This isn’t what we expected after you looked under the hood.” We liked both of those houses. It was hard to walk away. After going through the first one and thinking about the whole thing, we terminated the contract for both houses, and it felt like we had made the right decision. Once we got over the initial, that was disappointing. Working with your realtor and making sure they have someone good for doing inspections, both inspections were long, and our inspector walked through every step carefully with us.
What I end up doing with my buyers is I tell them what you said. We bought a car and haven’t looked at the engine. That is the way it goes. For those of you who are brand new to the process, reading this interview, and are all excited to be sitting here and reading about their process, you don’t get to dig around the house before you put in the offer.
What I tell people is, based on the neighborhood, the location, and all the intangible things that you can’t change about this house, how much money would you be willing to put into the home if and when we find something wrong, air conditioner, furnace, roof, electrical problems, and plumbing problems. It can be negotiated.
Sometimes, you can tell the seller, “I thought the air conditioner would work. There’s a thermostat right on the wall. When I press the button, nothing happens.” You can say, “You have to fix this.” You, as the buyer, have to have a line. What was your line? How much money were you willing to put into these first two homes you crossed? If we have to put a couple of thousand in, did you have a number in mind that you were playing with?
We had thrown around several numbers. We were looking more in the $500,000 range for house needs and some work. We have to do some renovations and fix some things. That’s somewhere between $500,000 to $530,000. If the house was newer, seemed amazing, had all the bells and whistles, and everything was what we wanted, we could go closer up to $600,000. We had a wide range of work to do.
That’s talking about the price point. I’m asking, when you did the inspection, did you say, “If we find $5,000 worth of stuff, we’re going to ask for them to pay for it, or we’re going to bail on the deal?”
We didn’t talk about how much the value of what came back when the inspection that we were going to negotiate or how much we were willing to put in. Part of what shocked us was we weren’t expecting a certain amount. For the one house, we didn’t necessarily go through a whole report and figure out how much it was going to be.
The thing about North Texas that’s unique is the clay soil. There ended up being a lot of foundation issues. The first house had a repair. We were like, “We don’t want a house that has had foundation problems.” That was immediately off the plate. Once we learned a little bit more, we were more open to it. The second house had a lot more that needed to be done. It was closer to $50,000 worth of work, even if we had talked about a number that was going to be way over.
Was this $50,000 worth of stuff hidden where you couldn’t see it in the walkthrough? It was stuff that only the inspector was there to point out to you.
We noticed some things, such as the foundation problem. We didn’t see there was a root through the sewer that was a hidden problem. The problems with the pool were mostly related to the equipment. We knew that it needed to be resurfaced. We didn’t know much about what that cost, but there were a lot of other things with the pool that were under the surface. There were a few things with the roof that were typical, like the flashings. There are a few things that were not a big deal. When you look at houses in general, that stuff tends to go with water exposure. That was not a big deal. We gathered some things that were hidden things. The air conditioner was older, and the sewer needed to be flushed.
For the house, we put an offer in with a certain amount because we were going to go in with an appraisal and not an appraisal waive, or for the other house, we waived the two other houses. For this one, we didn’t think it was worth as much, but we wanted the house. We negotiated with the seller and said, “We’re going to do an appraisal. Will you go down in price if the appraisal comes in lower?”
We were hedging our bets that the appraisal was going to come in lower. We ended up offering $15,000 more than we wanted to. We found all these other things. The fence was going to need to be redone. It wasn’t up to code for having a pool. It was going to have to completely come out. There were several things that were surprising. It looked pin neat and clean. It wasn’t quite that way when we had the inspection.
That last sentence hits it right on the head. There is a lot of stuff that can look neat and clean, but because you had the right team behind you and you had the right inspectors now, did you end up appraising for that higher price, or did it come in lower, and you guys renegotiated down to a new price?
We terminated before the appraisal because we didn’t want to go outside of our window. It was the contract and the option period. The appraisal was going to be after. We were making a bet on however much the appraisal cost. We were going to get a lower appraisal. She was still going to go for the lower price because she could end up saying no to a certain degree, depending on what the appraisal came in at. It could come in at a little bit higher than we wanted, and she wouldn’t negotiate all the things that needed to be fixed with the house. She was a stickler with the price. She said, “I want my higher price. I’m willing to sit on it as long as it takes.” She was going to negotiate with us as much as we wanted her to.
Market Pressure
You guys closed at the end of May 2023. One of the things that buyers out there, a piece you can learn here from Clarisse and their process of buying, is that however long you’ve been paying attention to what’s going on in the housing market was a little bit at the end of 2023 because we had high-interest rates in July. A lot of people, if they haven’t been paying attention, they think that we’re still there.
I posted a chart on all my socials the other day that shows that since March 2023, we’ve been going up a little, but month to month. You, as a buyer, need to be in the position where you realize what you guys realized. The seller might be thinking, “I will go under contract with you at this price, but I’m not giving you squadoosh in any credits or anything. I’m not renegotiating during the option period because prices are going up. I can cancel this contract and get a new contract next month. Was that the pressure that you felt?
There was a lot of pressure in the market because we did not have a lot of options in the neighborhood we were looking for or the house we wanted. It was like, “This one came up. I have to look at it. I have to put in an offer.” I didn’t get any time to sit and think about it, which is partly why, for the first two, if we had maybe had more time or had another look at the houses, we might have anticipated more of the house.
For the second house, we could tell that the floor was sloped in the living room, but I thought, “Some floors are built to be sloped.” I didn’t realize that it was going to be a foundation issue when. It turned out it was. The seller had no idea. She didn’t know that she had a foundation issue and a big old tree root through her sewer.
I had an inspector who used to bring a marble. He would set it down on certain floors if he thought it felt a little sloped. With that clay, it’s something you need to be aware of. It’s a great opening subject for us here. The number one thing I tell people is to have a great inspector. I cringe every time I will refer a couple of inspectors that I know and trust. They’ll go, “This guy is $100 cheaper.” I’m like, “It’s a $700 or a $400 inspection on a $500,000 house. Please don’t scrimp and skimp on $100 right here.”
There are some times that you will have to make sure that you have that option and that the contingency period works in your favor because you need the extra level. You had the sewer inspection to find the tree root. Some inspectors don’t have a sewer inspection as part of their package. You have to make sure you have a sewer inspector. If you find out something is wrong with the roof, you usually get a general inspection. Having those next levels are important.
That is a fantastic little look at understanding what you need to do as far as your inspection period. You also brought up a great point. Do as much homework as you can ahead of time with your unicorn team because when you jump into it, things move fast. That’s the market now. You can’t look at a house this weekend and tell your parents to drive into town, go with them and look at it all together next weekend. I have done that many times in my career. You can’t do that now.
Clarisse’s Home Buying Lessons
We’re going to move on. Clarisse is a former third-grade teacher. Before we started rolling on the show, she told me she had four pages of notes, which stoked me. If you are one of those organized people out there who cringes a lot when I tell dad jokes and you’re like, “Give me the information,” Clarisse, hit us with some information. What did you learn about the entire home-buying process? She’s going to pull out the notes, guys. I love it.
I learned a lot about foundations and the different types. I learned all about windows, when windows need repairs, and about rafters, shimming, and roofing. I know more about houses. That’s because I went through three inspections with my inspector, who was phenomenal. He was good. Even walking through a lot of different houses, I learned that there’s a lot that I didn’t know about houses in general. I’ve lived in several throughout my life.
When we lived in Seattle, we had an apartment, but my whole life, both my husband and I lived in houses. By living in it, you don’t necessarily realize all the stuff that goes into maintaining, keeping a house, what to look for, even what you like personally, moving from being a kid living in a house to being an adult where you run your own house. You don’t want the same things that your parents necessarily had. Going through that process and figuring out what you want for your space is an important key.
You don’t really realize all the stuff that goes into maintaining and keeping a house.
One of the things that we had to figure out that was important to us was being close to my parents. They live four minutes from our house. My mom can help watch our baby. My husband has a longer commute for what he wants. He was hoping to stay under 45 minutes, but it’s closer to an hour. That was one thing that we said, “What are we going to sacrifice here?”
The commute was one thing to be closer to parents, but we had a broad area we were looking at. We were looking at Plano, Murphy, Wiley, and Rockwell. There were too many places to look, and trying to narrow it down to what was the most important and figuring that out. It took a long time, but eventually, we got there. We picked a house and went with it. That took a while. It’s
What happens is the people who write the real estate articles are all these old farts. Their whole job is to try to figure out what the young people are thinking. There are certain groups and people who live in larger metro cities where walkability is important. You brought up a great fact. A home, if you are planning to stay there, and I recommend at least five years because you never know what’s going to happen to a market.
If you’re planning to play for several years, you have to think about the seasons of your life. It’s great to be near the city and walk to everything. If you have a daycare that you may or may not have down the line, that extra fifteen minutes in the drive saves you tons of money because you have the daycare close. That’s such an important piece of the puzzle. It is the hardest thing in the world to understand.
First Home Buying Dream
You get an apartment, and you’re thinking twelve months. You have to think twelve years changes your whole mindset. You came to me in October 2022. What was your process before you found the show as far as your family is thinking about wanting to buy a home? After you found the show, what got you from October 2022 to closing in May 2023? Let’s start with the beginning. When did you first start thinking about buying a house? Are you organized? Have you been thinking about this since you were fourteen?
Maybe not fourteen, but it’s always been part of the plan. I’m going to have a house. My parents, grandparents, and my husband’s parents and grandparents all owned houses. We were fortunate in that way. A lot of people in our families worked hard. We were able to be home multi-generational, owning a home family. We will pick a spot and be able to choose a house.
Both my husband and I ended up in Seattle by circuitous routes. We got married during the pandemic in 2020 in August when you couldn’t have a reception. That was quite a process, but we weren’t sure if we were gonna stay in Seattle. We liked it there, but we didn’t want to buy a house and commit. We didn’t quite have the funds ready yet. Once we got to a point where we had saved, we said,” Where do we want to be? What does our life plan look like?”
We decided that we wanted to eventually move closer to family. My sisters are in the Midwest. My parents are here in the Dallas area. My husband has a brother in the Midwest and a brother in Texas who’s now moving to Denmark. His parents and grandparents are in Mexico. They’re spread all around. We said okay, “If we’re in Texas, it’s a lot closer than being in Seattle. We’re not going to buy a house in the Seattle area, which is a lot more expensive. We’re going to go to Texas.”
By the time we got to October 2022, we already had had our first baby. We said, “We’ve saved up everything that we need for the house. We needed to jump in and figure out what we needed to do for it. We were trying to figure out how to buy a house in another city while living in Seattle. Were we going to move there and find an apartment? What was that going to look like?
We were fortunate that my parents had the room in their house. We were able to stay with them for a couple of months while looking for a house. They said, “You can be here all the way through the end of the summer. Whenever you find a house that’s great, you can move out.” We didn’t necessarily get monetary help for many of our families, but it was monetary. The time was huge to live with my parents while looking for a house in a city that we hadn’t lived in before.
There are multiple different ways that you can do city-to-city. There are some people who will take trips in and do small tours with realtors. First, you start online and do everything online. You can do tours. Some people have decided to move there. They decide, “I’m going to live there for a year.” They’ll look for a twelve-month rental. You can look for short-term rentals too. Dallas is going through a weird thing with Airbnb now. I’m sure there’s still some available. It’s having that option to be there. When you were there in the parents’ house, did you end up exploring neighborhoods to figure out where you wanted to narrow it down?
We took an epic road trip around Thanksgiving. We went and stayed with my parents for about a month after we went to see my grandfather in Michigan for Thanksgiving. We were able to meet Brenda. My mom and I went and saw a house with her. I went and looked at a couple of neighborhoods. My husband and my dad went out and looked at some neighborhoods because we had to rotate the baby around. They went and looked at some neighborhoods.
We were able to narrow things down to what we were interested in and what we weren’t interested in. My husband liked the houses that had more unique qualities. He liked the older houses in Plano. I was more into let’s go with something newer. We had to compromise on that. It did end up in 2017. After we terminated the contract on the first house, Brenda suggested, “We should put a filter in for newer houses.” We said, “We don’t want to filter out the old ones because we like them. Maybe there’s somebody out there that’s kept something up well.” It turned out we did end up with a newer house. She was spot on with that. It’s 2017. It’s not old. It’s had one owner. She was right.
Buying a home is a personal thing. Inspection is important for unique/old homes, and you need to double-check. There are some people who take great care of their homes, and there are some people who are excited about that uniqueness. They are ready and willing to put the time, money, effort, and energy into it.
There are many people who are hesitant in an appreciating market when prices are going up. I always tell people, “If you can figure out a way to do a lot of legwork before you get there, do not lock yourself into twelve months because you might be thinking about the move sixteen months before you move.” You look for four months and move. You rent for twelve months.
Home Buying Obstacles
In those twelve months, home prices could go up to $25,000, $50,000, and $75,000 in an appreciated market. It’s good to do what you guys did and figure out that temporary situation. This is the best interview ever. Go back to your notes. What about obstacles? What about things that you thought and things that you were afraid of that ended up being easier? What part of the process was something that you weren’t expecting or that you were expecting?
Any fears were minimal, but mostly because I’m organized. I need to know how to analyze a person. That’s why I found the show. It is because I didn’t know a lot about real estate or buying a house. I was like, “I need to have some background knowledge. When I walk into a situation, I don’t feel like a deer in the headlights.” Something that I had read on the show was maybe your realtor is going to ask you to go over the price that you think you might need or go over the list price to get your offer accepted, which is what happened with the first house. It was in the $750,000. We offered $585,000 with the appraisal waiver, and we said we were going to pay the title.
Being able to read the blog and know that that was something that a realtor might ask the buyer to do, having that knowledge isn’t like, “You’re asking me to offer $15,000 over.” It wasn’t a surprise coming in. One of the things that was helpful for me with the show was having a lot of different background knowledge, looking at mortgage stuff, looking at how to find a good realtor, which you put together with Brenda, and looking at inspections. Having knowledge in all the areas and a team of experts to work with was helpful. I don’t know anything. That’s why I needed the show.
Having a little bit of knowledge in all the areas and then having a team of experts to work with is very helpful when buying a home.
You caught me around 125 episodes when you started. We’re almost at 200 now. People are like, “What do you say after the first ten episodes?” I’m like, “Buying a home changes month to month.” I’m having a conversation with somebody who put in an offer on a home. We’re like, “We’re not getting in a bidding war.” Thankfully, I know them well. I said, “You’re not buying a house in 2023.” In Southern California, that’s how it’s happening.
You mentioned something interesting to me. Being organized like you are is great because I hope I gave you enough to chew on 100 and something episodes. I’ve had a lot of people who had no real support. It’s not because the people didn’t want to but because they came from multi-generations that had never bought a home before. That’s why I keep pumping these episodes out because these people need some help and guidance. Did you get guidance from the people in your family? Did you ignore most of it? That’s my question. Were some of it helpful?
The majority of guidance that I got from my mom and dad was we took them to most of the houses that we looked at. There were a few times that my husband and I went, and my mom and dad watched the baby. It was helpful to have a lot of eyes on the house to say, “Did you notice there was a funny crack in the corner? There were these water stains. I noticed the window seals in a lot of the house seemed to be broken. There was this problem with the tree in the backyard, which looks like it’s a disease issue because trees can be expensive to cut down.
They’re like, “There are a lot of old trees on this property. You might want to think about what that’s going to do for the foundation.” It was great to have other people to look at. My husband and I were clear. We were like, “We are going to go and have a conversation about the house. We appreciate your input.” We went and talked it over personally so that it wasn’t like my parents were helping us buy the house. It was us buying the house.
I want everyone to get both pieces of that summary. Lots of eyes are helpful. Private conversation is necessary. A lot of people sometimes will have financial help from their parents. When that happens, that’s all you. Whatever you guys have to figure out. I don’t know how much $10,000 worth of down payment helps buy as far as what parents can and can’t say about a home. I know other people whose parents are putting down half. That’s a whole different deal.
We have a joke in the real estate industry. I do not participate in all these jokes because it’s people being lazy. Dads coming to an inspection are deal killers. You wake up. It’s going to be a great day. You show up at the inspection. Your first-time buyer’s dad rolls up behind them, and it’s like, “No.” If you have a great team, and if the team can explain to the first-time home buyer your great unicorn and help you figure out how to get a good inspector.
If the inspector can explain it to you, the inspector should be able to explain this to a parent or another set of eyes. That part of it is something that you hit the nail on the head, and bringing everybody in is great. This is exciting. You found this in October 2022. You went from state to state. You figured it out. You closed on a home in May 2023. You’re there right now. It’s 128 degrees. How is the air conditioner working?
I keep it cooler than it should be. In the morning, my husband will be like, “Can I turn the AC back up?” I was like, “Sorry, I like it cool to sleep.” I let him turn it back up during the day.
Planning For Life’s Milestones
Tell us about you guys getting married, having a baby, and buying a house. There are a lot of people who will tell me, “I’m not quite ready yet.” Was it your organizational side that helped you get married, have a baby, and house in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023?
One thing that my husband and I do is sit down every single month and have a financial planning meeting. We talk about what’s in our savings, what we plan to put in our savings, what we spend, what the budget is going to look like, what our planned spending is for the next month, like if we’re taking a trip. We look at everything each month. Sometimes, it’s an easier month than others.
Every September, we have a fiscal year because we started our fiscal year after we got married because we got married in August. September starts our fiscal year. That meeting is a little bit longer. We break out the drinks because it’s a long one. We do that every single month. We’ve had a couple of months where we have to double up. We do two in one, but that’s helpful for making sure that we’re on track with everything.
When did you start the house budgeting in this? Did you start a down payment savings account at that first fiscal meeting with the cocktails in September 2020?
Yeah.
Some people find the show and go, “I’m thinking about buying a house in a year.” They haven’t started that yet. I’m like, “Call a unicorn now. They don’t believe that someone is going to work with them for free for a year or two years. You guys, I love the balance. We’re going to get organized. I’m going to be doing some drinking. I love that because you have to take the edge off when you’re doing that. You started that back in 2020. When you started, what were you trying to save? Were you thinking of a dollar number? Were you thinking of 20%? Where was your mind?
We were trying to do 20% down on $600,000. We had it within a few years.
Did you guys end up at 20% down on this purchase?
We were more than 50% down.
I would like you to Zoom me in on these fiscal meetings.
We don’t spend a lot of money on stuff. We do travel to see family. That’s one of our larger expenses. We tend to live conservatively. I’m not working at the moment, but we were both working. My husband has a job that’s good, has good benefits, and pays well. We put most of that away, and all went to the house.
One thing that I would recommend for anybody buying a house is if you aren’t thinking about maintaining your house down payment fund, keep that for renovation and furniture. Don’t put it all on the house. You need something to be able to do stuff because we’ve already replaced a faucet. We need to have stuff done to the roof. There’s a bunch of things that need to be done. I’m glad that we said, “We could put more toward the house, but we need to have it for house maintenance and furniture.” I wasn’t even thinking about that necessarily right away. I was like, “We should have money to be able to furnish our house.”
By the time this episode is up, there will be an episode up there somewhere in the late 190s, 198, or 199 called PMI is a Privilege. The same concept applies to what you are talking about. If they have 20% down but barely have 20% down on a $400,000 house, they will put down all $80,000 of their money to avoid the $75 a month PMI payment, which is temporary and is going to go away in a few years anyway if the home continues to appreciate and you pay down the loan. The same concept is what I tell people. Instead of $80,000, you put $40,000 down, you pay $253 more a month. You have $40,000 in the bank to be ready if something happens.
For you guys, the difference between 50% down and 55% or 60% down your mortgage might change to $100 or $200, but you’re talking about having an extra $6,000 to $12,000 in the bank to be prepared. I know people who have 50% down that will only put 20% down. They are hardcore stock people who are like, “If I put the other 30% into the stock market, I can make 8% on it. My mortgage rate is 6%.” They eventually end up pulling it out.
With that long-term thinking, there are many people who think, “I want the biggest down payment I can, so I have the lowest down payment ever.” If you are thinking about being a stay-at-home mom at some point, work to get a large down payment, but your strategy was amazing. While you’re getting married, having kids, and doing all that, you both work, save all the money, get a large down payment, and don’t use all of it, but you can turn into a one-income family because you guys save so much when you were both working before you got to the place that you’re at right now.
Anyone who’s thinking about having a family and you both work, if you go nuts and you save up, you can buy that $600,000 house with only a $300,000 loan. That’s insane. Go back to your notes. Give me something. What have we not touched on, third-grade teacher? What else do you want to share with the people?
Don’t Be Overinvested (Emotionally)
Something my husband said was, “Don’t be over-invested emotionally in a house in case you do have to walk away.” You do want to feel like, “This could be my house. I love it.” When you put in that offer, you don’t get to see everything. You have to have that inspection. In case something comes up or something else happens, you might have to walk away from that house.
Don’t be overinvested emotionally in a house in case you do have to walk away.
It’s going to feel sad and disappointing since you thought that could be your house, but don’t be over-invested in it, like, “We’re going to go pick out the refrigerator and this furniture. You have to have some distance from it because it could rock your world. You could make a bad decision if you’re overinvested and you say, “We’re going to stick with it.” Several weeks later, when you’re moved in, you’re like, “Why did we pick this house.” It’s going to cost us a lot more to fix than we expected after the inspection.
How did you guys deal with that as a partnership? Who was pulling who back?
It was pretty even. During the walkthroughs, I kept looking at my husband and thinking, “He hates the house. He doesn’t like it. I love this house. He is going to say no.” He was stoic through the walkthroughs and seeing the house. I would have to get him back home and go, “What did you think of the house?” He’d be like, “I love the house. I want to put an offer on the house. I’m like, “How did you look so different?”
There are some people who take my advice seriously because someone might be watching. There could be ring cameras up. Some people think, “I have to show no emotion because otherwise, I can’t negotiate hard. I want them to think I don’t care.” It sounds to me like he was having an internal battle and taking his own advice. Don’t fall in love with it.
The analogy that I give all the time is if you love classic cars and you see a car and the interior and the exterior are perfect like cherry, you have to decide. Buying a home is like, “I will buy this cherry car for $50,000 even if the engine is for a Honda CRX.” You don’t know until you lift up the hood. That advice is great because it helps you to stay level and realize that the first walkthrough is a walkthrough. I’ve had people who will walk because of the location of a home, backyard, and the possibilities for what they want to do. They’ll be like, “Unless the foundation is cracked, I’ll take it.” Is there anything else in the process? I could do this for hours with you, but give me another good one.
Have People On Your Team
It’s good to have a couple of people on your team who do different things as far as the feel of them. We went with a lender that my parents had recommended, but that wasn’t Brenda’s lender, which she typically works with. It’s not that I don’t trust that Brenda trusts her lender and loves her, and she’s amazing. It was nice to have someone else I felt was giving a different perspective that wasn’t in cahoots. That’s the wrong word, but they weren’t talking and knew each other’s system well, so you might miss something.
It was nice having the back and forth but our lender is a little bit younger than my parents and it felt almost like your uncle or dad giving you a piece of advice but in an expert way because my dad is not a mortgage broker, but it felt like that. When we had the second house, we were going to have to offer what she wanted but have the appraisal. When I talked to the lender, he said, “You’ve got two options. If you have a stopping number, you’re saying we’re not going to offer more than this, don’t. If you want the house, the appraisal gives you that leeway to say, ‘Are we going to be able to go down to that number?’ If she won’t negotiate, you can back out of it.”
He gave solid advice. He was grounded. He always had time for us. There was one time I texted him that I didn’t have time to finish sending the picture, and he was already responding to me about something with a house. He was phenomenal. We also had Brenda. They had different personalities and had an inspector. I called the foundation person. I had them come and do an inspection on this house.
Having someone to talk to who told me all about the soil, different types of peers and foundations, I called my own person and figured out what was going on with this because I was worried that we were going to have to go for a house in Texas that had foundation work. A lot of people say, “You’re having foundation work done, or you’re about to have foundation work done on your house.” I was like, “That is not something I’m familiar with.”
Being from Michigan, we had low soil with bedrock underneath, and Texas was different. It freaked me out. I had to get used to the idea before I was comfortable with it. The first house had a foundation problem, which was part of why we said, “No, we can’t do it.” We warmed up to the idea after we got more information and learned more about the soil.
A piece of advice for people is if you’re going to a new area, know what the issues are in your area and know where your line is to say, “I can pick a house like this, or I can’t.” If you live in a place that’s going to get hurricanes, how far do you want to be from the seashore, or how close are you willing to be? If you live in a place like Texas, am I going to go for a house that has had a foundation issue? Even somewhere that gets huge blizzards, are you okay with being in a slightly more rural area versus in a city? You have to know what your risks are for your house and what you’re comfortable with when making an offer. If you’re not from there, you need to get a lot more information than you think you need.
It’s something I haven’t brought up before in the show, which is incredible because we’re over 200. Knowing the area is amazing advice. Ask your unicorn team, “What do I need to know about this area?” They will have sayings. You’ve had a foundation issue, or you’re going to have one. That’s what people say. In California, people would be like, “There’s a crack in the wall.” I’m like, “You have a crack in the wall, or you had your crack in your wall prepared. Here’s the website. This is how many earthquakes we had because there are earthquakes that happen all the time.”
One of the great things about that is I’ve had people move from non-snow areas to other areas. They have a bad realtor. They will call me several months later and go, “Why are you telling me this slope driveway sucks?” I’m like, “If you’re in a sloping driveway in a snow time, and if that’s icy, you’re toast. Knowing your area is incredible.
Considering a city like Pittsburgh and not having driven through it. You’re doing this through the city of Pittsburgh, and you’re like, “Oh my gosh.”
We took our kids up to San Francisco. One of them is getting their permit. I’m like, “You’re lucky you don’t have a clutch.” He’s like, “What do you mean?” I’m like, “Trust me, you’d die on this hill if you tried to.” A great point you brought up about was the key to having that diverse team. I know we live in a world where Amazon is better. I get it, and it’s one word. It’s convenient convenient and ends up being cheaper and easier for you.
You were trying to say you didn’t want to feel like they were in cahoots. When people are in cahoots, it can work in your favor because the realtor and the lender have to work well for each other. If they don’t, their bread gets buttered from each other. I resemble that remark in terms of the older uncle vibe. I’ll take that. I said older. You can drink. It’s not even a budget time.
With that relationship with your parents, that lender didn’t help them get a loan in the last several months, but that relationship that he has with your parents means he’s the person that you want to get in business with. You want to get in business with someone who values the relationship of the clients as opposed to an Amazon click and easy one-time deal. That’s important. We’ve been talking for a while. I’ll give you one more. Is there anything else?
I thought of one. It went with your Amazon comment about the one click. In the housing market, it’s better to talk to a lot of people and have some flops before you pick someone. While we were still trying to pick our realtor, my mom said, “I have a couple of people that I know who are realtors.” I talked to the one gal, but we were not looking over here. She seemed nice, but my husband said, “I’m not going with a realtor who didn’t start being a realtor before the pandemic.” She started during the pandemic. He said, “She might be great, but I want someone with more experience.”
We didn’t end up going with her, but the mortgage lender who works with her realtor group has an office in that building. We met with him and talked to him. That was in December 2022. He said, “I’ll run your credit. We can start figuring some things out.” He seemed great. I contacted him after the holidays when we returned from Mexico. I still hadn’t gotten anything from him.
On a Tuesday, all of a sudden, I started getting a bunch of calls from Rocket Mortgage. I was like, “He got our stuff, didn’t he?” He didn’t do it. It took him a few weeks.” I had to prompt him for him to remember to do that. After that, I was like, “We’re not going to work with him.” I didn’t say anything and didn’t call him. He never contacted us. I was like, “I am glad we didn’t go with that guy.”
It was nice to have a flop because when this other guy called him back up that my parents had recommended, I didn’t want to go with a recommendation from my parents necessarily because I like to be independent. They have great ideas. They’re different people than you. Not every idea lines up perfectly. I called this guy back up. Throughout the process, as we were going house and did multiple houses and offers, my husband and I had several times where we were like, “We’re glad that we hired William to be our lender because he’s good and he takes time with us.”
When I started this show, I was giving the information away for free to everybody. I’m saying, “Make sure you find somebody like this.” Eventually, I realized there are a million and a half realtors, and I know some of them are good ones. The unicorns started. That’s helpful for people. The mom and dad thing is great and awesome because I ran into that. I have people who will say to me, “David, you seem nice, but it’s that my parents recommended you. I want to find this on my own.” I’ll say to them, “Whoever else you talk to, go online and see what they’re doing to help educate people in this process.”
I always win because no one does as much, but I get it. I’m like, “I don’t want to win you over because your parents recommended me. I want to win you over because you like me. If your parents recommend you to someone, talk to a unicorn and talk to your parents in person. Dig deep, look at reviews, and ask them both, “This is cool, but you came to me for my parents. Do you have any other buyers you worked with that aren’t my parents?” When you ask a unicorn that, they’re going to have twenty. It’s a great way to help out.
The flop thing has never been more important than now. At the end of June 2023, we’ve lost over 60,000 realtors. A realtor quits every three minutes and 37 seconds in 2023 because the market has been going up for several years. When there was a little dip at the end of 2022, like your husband said, if they’ve been only doing it since the pandemic, they only know one way up. They don’t know how to handle the way the market is going now. That can be a hugely important factor.
I don’t like to tell people you have to use an old realtor, and I don’t want any realtors out there who are several years into it and are good at their job to be mad at me, but experience counts. It’s someone who’s experienced, or they work on a team with people who are experienced. There are a lot of people getting out of the game right now because they’ve only known an easy market. It’s anything but easy now.
You are an inspiration. I will have to get in on one of those Zoom meetings or create a Zoom meeting for your monthly budget. If I could make an episode out of that and teach people how to save 50% on a home, that’s incredible. Thank you so much for sharing your notes with us and your organization. You are an inspiration. We’re grateful to have you on the show. Thanks.
I’m happy to share. It gave me a lot, and I wanted to give back.
—
What a great interview. Clarice was chock full of incredible little nuggets of wisdom for you. You notice Clarisse was prepared. I’m talking about someone who was well-planned. She came to the interview with notes to talk to me. How about that monthly financial planning meeting? That is intense. If you’re looking for tips on how to prepare, go back and read what they did. There’s some great stuff in there.
The biggest thing of interest to that interview was understanding how a team of experts can help you. Clarisse comes into it with a lot of questions because she’s incredibly prepared and everything from bad inspection to how to move from city to city to work on her finances. All of that was verified and double-verified because she had a full unicorn team of people behind her.
If you are looking for a unicorn team to get started now, you don’t have to be ready to write offers now. You can ask for help to get you moving in the right direction. Go to HowToBuyAHome.com and click Ask David. There’s a button there. It goes right to me. I’ll send you some information to help you find the right unicorn in your area.
There’s a ton more information, videos, and all kinds of stuff on Instagram, which is the How to Buy A Home Podcast. You’ve also got the YouTube How To Buy a Home Podcast and @HowToBuyAHome on TikTok. If you’ve got some time and you’ve gotten any value out of this, write a review, whether it’s Apple or Spotify. Those reviews help other people to know that this show knows what it’s talking about. Leave a comment for me on social media. I love chatting with all my homies out there. Thank you so much to Clarisse for the interview. Thanks to you guys for reading. Hang in their gang. Things might feel like the year is getting tough for buying a home, but if you have the right plan, you can do this.
Important Links
- Instagram – How To Buy a Home Podcast
- YouTube – How To Buy a Home Podcast
- @HowToBuyAHome – TikTok
- Apple – How To Buy a Home Podcast
- Spotify – How To Buy a Home Podcast
This podcast was started for YOU, to demystify things for first time home buyers, and help crush the confusion. After helping first timers for over 13 years, I knew there wasn’t t a lot of clear, tangible, useable information out there on the internet, so I started this podcast. Help me spread the word to other people just like you, dying for answers. Tell your friends, family, and perhaps that random neighbor you REALLY want to move out about How to Buy a Home! A really easy way is to hit the share button and text it to your friends. Go for it, help someone out. And if you’re not already a regular listener, subscribe and get constant updates on the market. If you are a regular and learned something, help me help others – give the show a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, or write a review on Spotify. Let’s change the way the real estate industry treats you first time buyers, one buyer at a time, starting with you – and make sure your favorite people don’t get screwed by going into this HUGE step blind and confused. Viva la Unicorn Revolution!
Instagram @DavidSidoni
Tik Tok @howtobuyahome