Making an Offer to PURCHASE a house!

When making an offer on a house, it's scary not knowing what it is you don't know!

So how does one figure it all out?  Well, to begin with you will never figure it ALL out but you can take steps to figure out a lot.

#1.  Get the professionals to give you an inspection.  A plumber, an electrician, a HVAC guy (heat and air guy) and a general contractor are usually enough to give you a pretty good idea on what’s going on and if you need to fix or replace anything how much it may cost.

#2.  Talk to the neighbors.  We all like to talk about ourselves and our lives, even if it isn’t pretty!  So get the skinny from your future neighbors.

#3.  Know that you are buying a used product (even brand new houses have imperfections!) and it isn’t going to be perfect.  Life happens at home and the home will usually show it.

#4.  You can use what you find out during an inspection to re-negotiate your contract if need be.  So if you made an offer in good faith regarding the condition of the home and you discover some major issues, use that knowledge, along with the professionals estimate to make it right, and take it to the seller to adjust the sales price or to get the problem fixed.

#5.  Know that the time period for your home inspection, in the state of Oklahoma, is for you to do your due diligence and if during that time period you decide you don’t like something you discover about the house OR you just decide that now is not the time for you to buy, you can back out of your contract and get your earnest money returned to you.

#6.  The appraisal, which is done for your lender so they don’t loan too much  money for a house that isn’t worth it, is another way to get out of the contract if the house doesn’t appraise for the purchase price (the amount you offered to buy the house.)

So really, in the state of Oklahoma, at this moment in time, the Oklahoma Real Estate Commission Purchase Contract is written with a slant to the buyer and there are several ways a buyer is protected from buying a house they don’t want or can’t afford.