Whether looking to buy or sell, real estate is a tangled web of variables and what-ifs. Deals collapse. Bargains disappear. Jargon appears more than you care for. And hidden costs fling themselves from the floorboards. All this is part and parcel of the real estate market. Navigating these treacherous waters often requires the expertise of professionals — people who understand an area’s decadal appreciation trends or a particular house’s current, objective appraisal. Don’t be shy to signal SOS.
Accessing and comparing critical property information can be an arduous and time consuming process for amateurs in search of quality real estate for sale. Finding adequate housing that will appreciate over the years without hassle or hitch is something of a misnomer. Sellers want to sell high; buyers want to buy low. And, meeting somewhere in the middle over the price of a house is much more difficult than, say, haggling over a pair of sunglasses. Therefore, bringing in professional help rarely seems a misstep.
For technocrats, the real estate for sale market has taken roots in cyberspace as well. Housing search engines allow prospective buyers the ability to input various factors like location, maximum and minimum costs, square footage, and desired amenities. Results are ordinarily displayed instantaneously and, typically, in user-friendly formats. When perusing real estate for sale in the Chicago area, www.chireader.com proves an excellent resource. Other cities have similar, online classifieds for real estate.
The website www.realtor.com is another reliable real estate resource. By linking realtors together, e-commerce, real estate for sale sites allow potential homebuyers the opportunity to elicit property information from different companies. For instance, a perfunctory property search could yield advertised homes from Coldwell Banker and America’s #1 Discount Broker on the same page. Weaving across town from real estate company to real estate company, looking for the best deal is no longer required due to the informational capacities of the internet.
Unfortunately, merely finding the perfect environs is not the only step — a property’s price is an equally important consideration as well. And contingencies invariably arise in regards to costs. Condominiums and apartments generally require monthly assessment fees for upkeep. Assessments vary in both cost and coverage: from heated to unheated, from cable included to water excluded and from as little as $100 to $500 a month. Monthly assessments are, for the most part, non-negotiable and, like property taxes, perennially increasing.
Realtors tend to suggest that — when bidding on a property — potential buyers should offer 10% less than the listed price (this is by no means a hard and fast rule). In reality, property values, and real estate for sale in general, is much more complex. Sellers will sometimes refuse to counter-offer if bids tendered are too low. And, market forces, as well as housing specifics (location, appreciation values, monthly assessment fees, and property taxes) weigh heavily into bidding decisions. Haggling over price can sometimes ruin what would have been a profitable sale. Fair is fair. Sellers and buyers alike should abide this simple aphorism. And entertaining the services of a realtor can give both parties a good idea of what to expect in terms of a fair price. Buying real estate (as well as selling it) is full of snags and concerns, and buyers should take care to examine all possible expenses before drying the ink — make sure the other party doesn’t have a monopoly of information.
By Jean-Pierre Lacrampe