The real estate industry is the same. People still need to move, and virtual home tours are very common. Although, as you may know, buying a new home isn’t as simple as viewing homes.
There are a few different steps involved in the home buying process and completing these tasks from home comes with challenges at multiple times during the process.
Here are some tips that addresses every step of your home buying journey, allowing you to purchase a new home in the safest manner possible.
Step 1: Consultations
This is just like your typical buyer’s consultation, except for the fact that the meeting is held over video conference. This is a good opportunity for you to get to know us and decide if we are a good fit to work together.
We’ll start by discussing your needs. Understanding your motivation for buying a house and what is important to you as a homebuyer helps us a lot in the home buying process. Our goal is to deliver a fully personalized experience, and make your dream come true.
Next, we’ll discuss the market. We’ll cover difference between a buyer’s and seller’s market, as well as the specific market conditions in the area you would like to move to. This also serves as a natural transition discussing your criteria.
We will work with you to identify your list of “must-haves,” a price range that you are pre-approved for and comfortable with, and any additional criteria that you have your mind set on.
Once we’ve answered any additional questions you might have, we’ll walk you through our loyalty agreement and associated business disclosures, then send them via DocuSign for you to easily review and complete.
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Step 2: Property Search
Our agents will keep you up to date and email you homes that fit your search criteria as soon as they hit the market, giving you inside access that buyers looking on third party websites won’t have. During this step, we’ll be keeping in close communication to keep track of the homes you are considering, as well as any background research needed to help you evaluate different properties.
Step 3: Video Tours
Since we can’t schedule a time to go and see properties, the virtual showing process is the best option.
When you find a property that you want to see, your agent will schedule a time with the listing agent to do a walkthrough of the home. The virtual tour can either be done live over Facetime or a pre-recorded for you to watch whenever you like.
We recommend booking a live viewing with your agent so that when you view the property live, you can ask questions and get answers right away.
Step 4: Sign Online
Once you’ve found a property, toured it virtually and decided to put in an offer, we can help you sign the documents digitally.
We’ll start by taking you through the purchase contract and identifying opportunities for negotiation. Once we have arrived at terms that you agree with and are confident will result in the acceptance of the seller, we will create a digital offer and send it to you via DocuSign.
As an extra, along with your offer, we recommend you create a personalized letter to send to the seller to introduce yourself. You can explain why their home is the one for you. We will then send the offer to the listing agent to present to the seller.
Step 5: Payment Process
Once your offer is accepted by the vendor and your contract is complete the settlement process begins. To ensure your safety, we can do all of the banking and deposit money process online!
If you’d prefer to handover a cheque, your agent will arrange a time to pick up the cheque while maintaining proper social distancing rules and ensure that it is delivered in a timely manner to the seller. Regardless of your situation, we are prepared to handle this step with your safety in mind.
Step 6: Final Inspection
We will ensure that the vendor is aware of your inspection appointment time so that they can properly disinfect the property and maintain social distancing while the inspection is being conducted
We usually recommend that buyers attend the last 30 minutes of the scheduled inspection in order to go over the report with the inspector. Every inspector operates a bit differently, but we will work with your inspector to schedule a time to connect over video chat to discuss the findings included in your inspection report, and then proceed with any repair requests that you may have.
Step 7: Settlement
Usually, you would normally go in person to complete your closing paperwork, but since we can’t at the current time, we are working with solicitors that are taking innovative approaches to make your settlement date safer for you.
All the documents will be sent digitally and as a buyer the only thing you have to do is contact your agent to arrange picking up the keys. If necessary the agent can drop the keys off to a secure location where you can collect them later, making the whole process contact free.
Step 8: Congratulations on Your New Home!
Once settlement is complete and the keys have been handed over, the property is yours! If you need help finding moving companies, we will be happy to reach out to companies our past clients have had good experiences with and ensure that they are taking proper health precautions.
The world is changing, and we are ready to adapt in order to make your real estate goals happen. If you have any questions about our virtual home buying process or would like to schedule a virtual consultation, call us at 1300 SKAD RE or email us at info@skadre.com.au
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