Hi everyone!
This is Lance Mohr your Tampa Bay Realtor and in this video I'm going to go over four
essential home buying tips that's going to save you a ton of time and a ton of frustration
and make sure you stay all the way to the end of this video because I'm going to deliver
on some really good information that's going to blow your mind.
Okay.
So I know that's a pretty bold statement when I set up front I mean to deliver some information
that's going to blow your mind but I'll tell you what I've been doing this for over 20
years.
Anybody who knows me.
Back in Dallas when I live there or here in my office knows I'm about efficiency what
I'm into.
I'm into knowledge.
I'm into game plans.
I'm into a system.
I love doing these videos and this is probably my favorite because I love saving people time,
money and frustration and that's what I'm going to do in this video.
I say money because when we're adults time is money and I've been doing this for so long.
So what I'm going to do in this video is I'm going to walk you through four home buying
tips that I do with my buyers and you know it's going to save you so much time.
It's the exact system that I give all my buyers they C's s exact system that when my wife
and I moved here from Dallas in 2006 we found a home that we live in.
We've been living in it since 2006.
We found it from start to finish in five and a half hours.
I worked with buyers that have worked with other real estate agents.
Literally worked with them for months and I'm talking four months 12 months 18 months
and then I go out and show them one time their in-house.
So let's get to it.
Let's start off the first three tips are very similar but let's start off with the first
one.
When I sit down with a buyer I’ll ask, tell me a little bit about what you're looking
for they'll tell me what they're looking for their situation.
We'll talk for a little bit and there are four things I really want to hone in on.
The first one is I want to hone in on how old do they want the home to be.
So word was in 2018 right now.
So let's say they want a home and they tell me well we only want to go back five years.
All I ask them and I'll say well let me ask you a question if it's the perfect home in
the perfect area for the perfect price and it's six years old would you buy the home
and they say well yes and I'll say okay well how about will you go back well we'll go back
10 years?
I'll say okay well if it's a perfect home in the perfect place the perfect price so
eleven years old would you buy it
Now okay, so we know there.
We know there are ten years of the buyer.
All right so then I'll ask them I'll say well what about the square flagger?
Is it a smallest square footage you would be willing to bond with it?
They'll say well 2,500 and I'll say well let's say it was the perfect home in the perfect
area at the perfect price it is 2,497 square feet would you buy the home?
And they say well yes and I'll say okay what's the minimum you would go down to and then
I keep on doing this and the reason is that when you're looking in the MLS.
When you're working with a real estate agent what you want to do is you want to go down
very well.
You don't want to just put something 2,500 square feet.
So you want to go down to your lowest possible square footage.
You would be out and I'll wrap this up in a little bit but so then what I do is I'll
go to the price.
I'll say tell me about the price.
What price range do you want to be in?
Well, we probably want to be around the $350,000 price range tops.
So let's do $275,000 to $350,000 and I'll say okay let's say you found the perfect home.
Now people sort of know what's going on by now they know what I'm going to say and then
I say we found the perfect home.
It's in the perfect area you absolutely love the home and it $351,000 would you buy the
home and they say yes.
They said what's your top price range your mind at the app and they say $360,000 and
then I said what.
Here's the thing I'm not trying to talk to you into buying an older home.
I'm not trying to talk you into buying a more expensive home.
I'm not trying to talk you into buying a smaller home that you want but the problem is when
people come into me as a real estate agent and I know they do this to all the other agents
and most agencies don't ask these questions.
So it tends to happen is they go out there they give them the parameter and it's like
looking you know through a hole this big but what you need to do is you need to expand
and then contract.
It's a process of elimination and the reason what you want to do this is that when I was
first in the business.
I was brand new in the business.
I remember someone and I did not do this and what happened is we went out the next day
and what happened is they expanded their criteria.
So they said they wanted to be in this criteria.
They expanded it out to here and we lost the home by one day and I told myself this is
never going to happen again.
So I sat there and I thought for a long time what do I need to do to make sure this never
happens again and that's the problem.
I've talked to people that have literally lost four or five homes before because they
keep on going back and what tends to happen if you don't do this a lot of cases you end
up like a gerbil on a treadmill.
You're going over and over because soon as you look at all the homes up to $350,000 at
2,500 square feet.
That's five years old.
What's going to happen if you don't see anything you're the
You have to wait until that perfect home comes up or you're going to have to move and it's
usually in one of those three areas.
It's going to be in the price their square footage or the year built.
So what I tell everybody is I don't really care if you buy a $300,000 home at 2,000 square
feet that's three years old you know what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to expand and
then contract because what I want to do is I want to make sure you know the homes available
because it's like this if you say 350,000 unbelievably there are people that will actually
list their home at 350 to at 355 and the problem is you won't see them and you know this because
when you go on these websites like Zillow, Trullia and all these other ones.
They're always incremented buyers or increments shoppers.
The problem is you need to expand your criteria you need to open up look at the end of the
day if someone wants to be in $350,000.
How they could find one for 250 it's fine with me or if they want 2500 square feet.
You know maybe they find a home that's perfect at 2400 but I want to give them the options
maybe they find a home at 2800 or 3,200 but I want to give people the options and then
there's a real estate agent what I want them to do is I want them to send the homes to
me the most numbers I want to work through and I want to see what type of area they're
in because I want to feel it out.
Is this a really good area and not such a good area.
Is the home overpriced?
Under prices the Builder amount?
Is it a quality builder?
Is the quantity builder because the last thing you want to do as a home buyer goes out and
pay the price of a Lexus and you're only getting two Honda no offense to Honda owners.
I'm just saying you know the goal is to pay the price of a Hyundai and get a Honda and
that's what you want to do.
So you want to make sure you hire a real estate agent so he knows what they're doing.
If you haven't seen my video and how to choose a realtor just go right up here you can check
it out but these three things are essential.
All right so let's get into the fourth thing so or I don't know we could say three two
one.
Maybe this would be the number one thing.
The number one thing you need to do and I would probably list this number one before
you start doing anything else determine the area you want to live in.
I see this all the time people come to me.
They call me on the telephone and they give me their criteria we're talking about everything
and they say well I don't know.
I know I want to check out Riverview.
I want to check out new camp.
I want to check South Tampa whatever.
Pick the area first.
Now if you're in the Tampa area or whatever city you're in just substitute my city from
yours if you're in the Tampa area.
If you're looking in the Tampa Bay area you're going to probably know the difference of a
lot of these different areas out there but if you're not the camp of the area this could
be rather confusing.
So if you're not the Tampa Bay area and you're looking in this area I'm going to put a video
up here and it's going to go through a breakdown of the different areas in Tampa but this is
where your real estate agent becomes so important explaining different areas to you.
So let's say we'll break this up into two buyers.
If you live here in the Tampa area or if you're local to the area you're doing your search
in pick your number one area first and the reason why.
I say that is because if you have three areas you really like and your agent sending you
information from all three areas and that's okay they should but try to pick your first
area.
Your first area then your second then your third because you don't want to be looking
at your third favorite area and then all of a sudden your favorite home.
The home you would have chosen in your favorite area just sold.
Always do that.
Now if you're relocating what you want to do.
You want to come to the area.
In our case, it’s Tampa and you want to visit and you want to get your real estate
agent.
You're going to have.
You're going to be using your real estate agent as a guide.
I'm explaining you should be able to tell your realtor what you're looking for.
What kind of home you like.
What kind of subdivision you like.
What's important to you as far as amenities or schools or some of the things they can't
talk about but you want to make sure you use your real estate agent as a resource and then
you want to get online and maybe Google and look into different areas but let's say you
have five areas.
Here's what I suggest to everybody and I have a buyer coming out this weekend.
They're doing this.
So what you do is let's say you're up to $350,000.
You want to keep a very narrow search and you want to pick the five different areas
that you want to look in and then your narrow search would be for maybe $340,000 to $350,000
because let's face it the vast majority of those are going to probably be at $349,900
or $350,000.
So you're going to want to pick five homes in each area and then you're going to want
to have yours.
You don't want to go look inside.
What you want to do is you want to take those five homes put them in your GPS or your phone
or whatever you're using and drive around and you're getting an idea of what you get
for the money because it's going to help you narrow down.
One you don't just want a couple homes and you don't just want 10 homes you want five
as a good soft spot and the reason you want five is because out of those five two of them
are probably overpriced.
Anyhow but it's going to give you a good idea.
So you'll go look at this these five.
You know then you'll go look at these five then you wait at these fight and then you'll
have a really good idea of what area or areas you want to live in.
You could have a toss-up between one area or two areas.
So how you want to stay focus you want to have a game plan that's what you need you
to want to be able to pick up the phone call your real estate agent don't stuff off of
them because when you're looking at homes you need to rely on your real estate agent
to give you solid advice.
Especially on the different builders.
Is this a quality builder?
A quantity builder?
Who's the Builder etc?
So anyhow I hope this helps I tell you if you do these folk you're going to save so
much time, so much frustration and I know I've just been doing this for twenty years
now you have people all the time to call me saying wow it really works and when I used
to do all these training classes two years ago to real estate agents.
I would always teach them this because agents I think aren't asking buyers enough questions
they need to ask question after question after question and then they need to guide the buyer
all right.
I hope this helps.
If you like this video give me a thumbs up.
If you have any questions don't hesitate to reach out and contact me.
If you live in the Tampa Bay area I’d love to help you.
Have a wonderful day and best of luck to you.