The Home Buying Checklist

               

The Home Buying Checklist

The Home Buying Checklist

Six Tips to Help You Buy Your First Home

Video highlights:

*Things to consider when deciding on your housing budget

*Choosing where you want to live *The pre-approval

*Attorneys, Attorneys, Attorneys, who should I hire?

*The house of my dreams is too pricey. What should I do?

*How long does the process take?

Video Transcript:

Are you thinking about buying a house but you don't know where to start? 

Then my next video is a must watch for you if you're looking to buy a house but you don't know where to start then you've come to the right place I'm gonna share with you six tips that you can use today to save you a lot of money time and aggravation my name is Mark Schreier and I'm a licensed sales associate with century 21 American Homes Real Estate right here in Long Island New York the six, six tips as simple as they are they do work so tip number one know what you want to live only you can decide where that is do your research the average home owner takes about 18 months from the time they start their search to the time they're sitting in their sunroom while living room having a cup of coffee so make sure if you're thinking about moving in about two years you start that research now and what you should do think about neighborhoods think about proximity to the water we're here on Long Island if you want to live close  to the shore then think check out the towns there check out the school districts ask friends and family if they're happy where they live maybe you go visiting somebody on a regular basis and you'll like that area we'll start researching it now before you start making offers and the bus the best place to do that is starting online research the town research schools everything you can find online by just googling ok number two your budget besides location budget is very very important how much you actually want to spend on this investment it's probably gonna be one of the largest investments of your lifetime so make sure you know your numbers the worst thing for people to do is when they shop for a house and they finally find a house they love and then they realize they can't afford it and wasted all that time and they get very disappointed so sit down with a mortgage professional and you can find them the same way you find any type of person or professional that you need ask friends relatives for recommendations and they will give you a pretty good idea of the numbers that you have to work with if you're 18 months out one tip I would share if you eighteen months of two years out you don't necessarily have to run your credit but you can give them all your numbers and then when you get closer to purchasing a house you want to get pre-approved well you've run your numbers and run a true credit report so you're ready to go if in fact you find a house your dreams and you want to place that order of that offer and I'm going to include another video that I made just on that fact how to get all your ducks lined up in a row in a very competitive market we interrupt my video for a special housekeeping announcement if you're new to my channel thanks for stopping by please remember to subscribe and click the bell for notifications the name of the channel is real estate 101 everything you need to know about buying and selling residential real estate if you enjoyed it please give me a thumbs up if you weren't too thrilled don't tell anybody also please remember leave comments in the comment section below they include in those comments things you liked about this video also include topics that you'd like me to discuss in future videos I'm trying to make a platform there of things that I wish I knew before I bought my first house now back to our video number 3 actually I went into that already number three was the pre-qual and number four closing costs when you are going to figure out how much money you need make sure you account for closing costs the more expensive the house is the higher the closing costs are going to be but make sure you consider that as well and one other thing when you're budgeting you have to include your utilities in that all the things you're gonna pay monthly if you have car payments so you have utilities you have car payments you have homeowners insurance if you like the coast and you want to live close to the water you might have flood insurance which can be an expensive thing so make sure you consider that any other expense you might pay on a monthly basis the mortgage broker might not consider them into your your numbers but you should because you want to sort of maintain   certain lifestyle and you don't want to be hit with this negative news after you're already in the house and realized where's my money going oh I forgot to count all those other things into the into the mix number four number five choose a realtor or oh and a real estate attorney and I say real estate attorney an attorney that specializes in real estate because they will definitely they have the experience and they will help the process run a lot other than an attorney who's a general practice attorney or specializes let's say in litigation and they're doing you a favor if they're not familiar with how the real estate process works you can end up losing either a commitment on your interest or it could just be more problematic in the long run and you can ask your attorney that you might know for a recommendation to somebody else if they don't feel comfortable doing the actual closing number six if you run your numbers and you realize you really can't afford or your invest you don't want to invest that much money in the house where you want to live net and the type of house you want to get now should you either wait and continue saving overtime or should you try to tweak certain things so you can make it work maybe get a smaller house maybe do other things sit down with a financial planner and say what can I do to get that house to work for me there are different vehicles out there with less money down and the your mortgage professional will help you with that scenario but sometimes you're set on a house you want that house don't let that be the reason why you don't move because you never know in the future your mortgage rates might be higher and even though you have more money now for a down payment you can't afford it or it's sort of a wash because the mortgage mortgage rates just went up and now you waited a year or two and your monthly nut is almost the same and your two years that you just paid rent so do the math think about it if you have any comments or questions definitely leave them below this is Mark Shriver from century twenty one American homes and thanks again for watching hello yes I'm talking to you the person that watched my video to the very end thanks a lot for watching if you enjoyed it please give me a big thumbs up subscribe to my youtube channel like me on Facebook I am a licensed real estate agent in New York State but I also have a referral service that deals nationwide so if you're looking for to buy or sell a house anywhere in the United States please send me a text contact me by your phone and I'll set you up with a local professional in your area if you're in my vicinity I'd be more than happy to help you out in any of your real estate transactions that you'd like this is Mark Schreier from century 21 American Homes and I'll talk to you soon

Home Warranties Are They Worth The Money?

Things to consider when buying a home warranty.

Are home warranties worth the money? Learn the facts about home warranties. Home warranties are designed to protect you from large out of pocket expenses should a covered appliance or system need repair. Systems such as your boiler/furnace, central air, plumbing or electrical to name a few. There are many companies that offer Home warranties. Make sure you do your research before you sign the policy. Most companies have different levels of service the more covered the more you pay. Consider a rainy day fund as an option to this coverage.

Transcript of video

Home warranties that's the topic of my next video.

Are they worth the money or are they not you'll have to wait and see.

Hello everybody home warranties are they worth the money? That's what we're

talking about right now.

Basically what is a home warranty for those who have no

Idea? A home warranty is a warranty that covers your house some of them are

included when you buy the house so it will protect the buyer particularly on

an old property. It covers the major mechanical systems like your boiler your

a/c system some of them might include your electrical system and a whole other array of appliances and things. The more usually you include, they have, you know the gold plan the silver plan the

platinum plan the higher the plan the more the money and the more things that are

covered in the house. But is it worth it let's do a little math?  Let's figure

it out basically when you buy the warranty you can either pay monthly or you

can pay yearly. A lot of them include a service call fee they, also some of them

have deductibles so after it's all said and done is it really worth the

money? Well first there's so many companies out there which makes

competition really good and also means that you have to do your research before

you go and move forward with any company. If it's included with the price or if it's

included with the sale of your house, if you purchased a house and it already has

it make sure that that price before you bought the house

wasn't elevated to reflect that you are purchasing that home warranty.  Make sure you speak to your realtor that's representing you and

know your comps and if it is then that's something you can negotiate on your

particular deal before you close maybe you don't want it maybe you want to know

the company so do your research where can you do it well google it you get the

Better Business Bureau you got Department of Consumer Affairs you have

all these different rating systems that consumer ratings there's a lot out there

to help you do your due diligence when you shop for a home warranty determine

what you need you don't want to over warranty your house because it's not

going to be a cost-effective option and no

the average monthly cost is about fifty dollars a month so remember this is it

really worth buying a home warranty or can you take that fifty dollars a month

times 12 month 12 months a year put it in a savings account that's $600 a year

you have as an emergency funds for something fun for something breaking

down that $600 is not really that much money if you have your essential AC

system or you boil a break down but after two years you have 1200 plus

whatever interest you were able to find three years and four years down the line

you have more and more money saved up so you could either do it that way or you

can buy the home warranty the of your choice after you do your research and I

stress that because there's a lot of companies out there that people are not

happy with so I hope that gave you a little insight into the home warranty

process if you're new to my channel thanks for stopping by remember to

subscribe and hit that bell there for notifications and leave some comments in

the comment section down below and this is Mark Schreier from Century 21 American

Homes and I will see you or you will actually see me on the next video hello

yes I'm talking to you the person that watched my video to the very end thanks

a lot for watching if you enjoyed it please give me a big thumbs up subscribe

to my YouTube channel like me on Facebook I am a licensed real estate

agent in New York State but I also have a referral service that deals nationwide

so if you're looking for to buy or sell a house anywhere in the United States

please send me a text contact me via phone and I'll set you up with a local

professional in your area if you're in my vicinity I'd be more than happy to

help you out in any of your real estate transactions that you'd like this is

Mark Schreier from century 21 American Homes and I'll talk to you soon

Flood Insurance For Your House Money Saving Tips

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Mark Schreier Realtor with Century 21 American Homes Real Estate Syosset, N.Y.  and special guest Robert (Rob) Zabbia owner of Allstate Zabbia Insurance agency share money saving flood (Insurance) tips as well as other important flood insurance information.  A must watch for anyone buying in or currently owning a house in a flood zone. 

Topics Covered:

1)    How can I reduce the cost of my current flood insurance policy or save money when purchasing a new flood insurance policy?

2)    How can I find out if my property is in a flood zone?

3)    How can I find out what flood zone my property is in?

4)    What will and won’t be covered by my flood insurance?

5)    How long will it take for my flood insurance policy to become active?

6)    What is the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP)?

Make sure to check my other videos on this topic:

Should I Buy A House IN A Flood Zone?

https://youtu.be/fReW_sgVTHU

Is My House in A Flood Zone?

https://youtu.be/L3h47xzkFjY

Robert Zabbia

Allstate Insurance Agent

https://tinyurl.com/y3fmv8y5

Transcript:

Hello everybody this is Mark Schreier from Century 21 American Homes Real Estate

and today's video topic is flood insurance it's ironic that seven years

ago Hurricane Sandy actually hit Long Island I get one of those reminder text

messages actually from my facebook page if something I posted so seven years ago

we got hit with the so called hundred year storm so I thought it'd be good to

bring on an expert who is an expert in selling flood insurance to give us some

insight about the process and his name is Robert Zabbia Robert can you explain

a little about your background and then we'll get into our questions okay my

Rob Zabbia I own the Zabbia Insurance Agency we are the second generation with

with my dad with Allstate and  my dad actually took over from his uncle so

we have four generations in the insurance business so we've been doing

this quite a while. We had a lot of customers. We had over 800 customers affected by

Sandy with flood claims and you know so we learned a lot. They don't  see you

until you use it you don't really know exactly what's in there because there's

a lot of things that you know it's in the policy it's on paper but when you

see it in action it's a little bit different than than what you learn so it

was a big learning curve that was thrown at us because it was so many different

scenarios that never happened before so until you actually see it it's a little

bit difficult all right thanks Rob I know this is

definitely a significant topic for a lot of homeowners on Long Island or anybody

that lives on an island because water surrounded by water on all sides on Long

Island we have the North Shore of the South Shore I live in the middle of the

island so I'm not affected that much but I want the first question I have and I

have five questions and the last question is going to be a question on

how to save money on flood insurance tips that you can give homeowners that

are buying in in a flood zone what they can do to possibly save some money maybe

while they're there they've already bought the flood insurance or even

before they go through the process things that they can look for so stay

tuned for that at the latter part of this video question number one does

basically does my community participate - in the National Flood Insurance

Program the acronym NFIP can you explain a little about what that means I have no

clue what does NFIB I know I just gave the acronym but for those people don't

know what that means what's it all about all right so the

National Flood Insurance Program is run by FEMA so it's a part of FEMA program

and it was put in place because all the private companies pulled out of flood

insurance so people couldn't sell homes that were near the water unless they had

the flood insurance so the government stepped in and created the NFIP from

FEMA and most communities I think I don't know of any communities on Long

Island that don't participate they're having a couple of them that the

government has told them they had to make changes otherwise they we're gonna

fold their participation but they you know a lot of them have brought up you

know their sewer systems or drainage things like that in order to participate

in the Flood Insurance Program and the way you find out is that you know

basically if you call an insurance agent they can tell you whether you know you

qualify or not and get it both and if you're buying a home you know you can

ask the current homeowners if they have flood insurance because it's a good idea

to take over whatever they have right actually one of my recent deals the

homeowners saved a significant amount of money by being able to take over the

flood insurance that was existing on the house already they were getting quotes

that were crazy very expensive and when they found out that they were able to

they were able to buy for the current policy keep it transfer it we're very

happy to find out the amount of money they can save since that's there a very

good tip before we go any further I just wanna do some basic housekeeping YouTube

101 I guess you would say if you're new to the channel definitely thank you

to stop and by please remember to subscribe definitely like it and share

it with somebody that you think might have a need for this type of information

the name of the channel is Real Estate 101 everything you need to know about

buying selling residential or real estate and with that being said let's go on to

question number two how long what is a flood zone you how do you know if you're

in a flood zone in general like where can I find out that information? Well you

can go on to the the FEMA website National Flood Insurance website and

plug in the address if you want to do it on your own or you can call an insurance

agent or broker and they'll be able to do a search for you a lot of times the

banks will do it and because they the banks will require the add flood

insurance if you're at a higher risk zone but it's a good idea before you

sign a contract to check on it yourself get a quote for the home insurance and

flood insurance because feeling especially the house close to the water

it might just because the car like you you had a great example your client was

able to save with the flood insurance they can't necessarily do that with the

home insurance so it might make them house out of reach so it's a good idea

to just look before they sign the contract if they're buying and if you're

selling you should also don't don't cancel the flood insurance because your

mortgage is paid off because of that fact that makes your house way more

marketable if you can get skip somebody the existing flood policy and then that

grandfathered in and they could take over that much lower rate and somebody

who would be starting scratch that's actually a great point and when you're

shopping for a home make sure you find out what their current flood insurance

premiums are because it can save you a lot of money in the long run great tip

question number three how long does it take for my insurance to go into effect

I'm buying a house I put the money down you know pay the premium sign the papers

with the flood insurance broker in this case how long would it take for that

policy to be in effect so I know I'm protected well a home purchase and a

refinance is the only time a flood insurance policy can be made effective

immediately although wise there's a 30-day waiting period because they just

think about it when everybody knew sandy was coming up everybody wanted to buy a

policy that you know that weekend but it's a 30-day waiting period for that

reason there's a lot of people weighed by the policy right before the storm and

then they'll you know file a claim and there's no money coming in in order to

pay for the claim so yeah if you're buying a house it'll go into effect

right away but like I said it's a good idea to get the quotes and get it all

set up way ahead of time because we have seen deals fall apart before something

changed right before the closing so don't put it off till you know it the

day before to get the flood insurance great great point now everybody who is

definitely using it utilizing a mortgage to buy a house is required to have home

insurance the banks will give them a mortgage without but a lot of people or

some people pay cash and what is covered and what is not covered with flood

insurance because homeowners insurance covers a whole array of things some

people some things not covered and I know like if you have water backup and

how do I know this because I own a house and that this issue and they say unless

you have a certain writer you're not getting covered for water backing up if

it comes through whatever magical way it came through and the average person is

not an insurance guy does not understand this so what is not covered let's start

with that from a flood insurance policy all right so what's not covered from

flood insurance is any content in your basement

so they'll cover in the basement they'll cover the the walls they'll cover the

structure they'll cover the heating system the air conditioning if you have

a freezer refrigerator washer/dryer those things will be covered but if you

have a finished basement the furniture and all of that wouldn't be covered by

the flood insurance the and they'll only cover up to the flood damage on the

walls so just imagine you have six inches of water in your in your basement

they're gonna cut the sheetrock at 10 inches and then you just can't have to

fix it they're not gonna replace the whole walls Wow so that's a great point

so as high as that water goes is as high as they're replacing and what about we

know when you get water in a home the electrical system is going to be

affected if it went up to the outlets yes possibility of mold and all that

stuff is that mold wouldn't be covered the the remediation to dry everything

out would be covered and if there was like some mold there because it you know

that the damage happened yesterday and there's mold today that would be covered

but if you had a flood and now we're you know so many years after sandy if

there's mold now from Sandy that's not come if you can't go back to the flood

insurance company because that happens over a long period of time so it's it's

done in an accidental the other thing is contents they don't replace the contents

they depreciate so if that washer and dryer you had gets destroyed you paid

five hundred dollars for them they might only be worth two hundred dollars now

you're only getting the two dollars okay this is I guess I'll call a

question for a because as you're speaking I another question came up how

is there any overlap between your homeowners insurance and your flood

insurance and the point you just made a lot of people purchase homeowners

insurance where they have replacement costs where it's not depreciated so if

my flood insurance is depreciating man I'm only getting two hundred bucks for

my thousands all the washing machine will my homeowners insurance

pick up the difference well okay but it depends on this is this is where people

just like they get a quote and they just go with the lowest quote and the reason

that it's the lowest quote is because of the exclusions and until you have a

claim you don't really know where your exclusions are and one of the biggest

ones is the water backup coverage that you talked about right that could act as

an overlap unless your company doesn't cover and if it's due to flood waters so

during sandy you know we deal with several different carriers and during

sandy most of the carriers would not cover the water backup because it was

caused by the tidal surge brain and we had one carrier that covered it so that

acted as your overlap so they had $5,000 worth of water backup coverage to cover

whatever the flood insurance wouldn't cover in the basement okay if it sounds

confusing ladies and gentlemen it is that's why you need people like Rob

Zabbia to explain all the details for you and the last question the one I said

that people should wait for. Is there any way that a homeowner can save

money either you know let's say they have an active

policy now and they're in a flood zone it's a required insurance or they're

thinking about purchasing a house that happens to be in a flood zone and by the

way I'm going to put a link up on the top to other videos that I've made one

is should I buy a house in a flood zone and the other one is have a check and

see if your property is in fact in a flood zone so I'm gonna put links to

those in this video as well but back to the question is there any way that

anything a homeowner can do to save money and reduce the cost of flood

insurance moving forward yeah there's a couple different things there are some

private companies that are coming into the market they're very very limited on

their appetite though because obviously they're going to pick and choose because

the National Flood Insurance Program assets

everybody as long as it meets you know all the criteria whereas the private

companies can pick and choose that they want but again you need to look at who

the private company is I only deal with one company that's a private carrier

because they're the only one that I'm confident enough after sandy would would

be able to withstand this for a lot of these other companies I'm not sure about

and they all have ratings so thank you buy an A rated bond well listen you only

want to buy an A rated insurance policy and it's a lot of BCD rated insurance

companies out there so stay away from those but so look you shop and see if

there's a private carrier that's good and reputable that will be able to do it

for a better price and better coverage the other thing is is an elevation

certificate you can hire an engineer and they can look because let's say if

you're looking to buying a house and the people is sweared in the fifty years

they never had any water or sandy they didn't have any water but they're in the

high-risk column it could be because that house is a little bit higher and it

could qualify for a lower rate so for you know a couple hundred dollars the

engineer can come out and they can check it to see if we would qualify for the

lower and how do you find those engineers that do this type of thing

because that's a great point you can go yeah I'm sure you can search them on the

web I work with a couple that I know that are really really good at it and

they'll also do different things because like crawlspaces could disqualify them

because they look at the lowest ground floor level so if you have a crawlspace

that's below ground that's now the lowest level so you can put flood vents

in you can fill in part of the crawlspace to bring it up high enough

there's a bunch of things that you can do that could cut the premium from seven

eight thousand dollars a year to two or three thousand dollars a year which

makes you a huge difference definitely particularly you want to work with

somebody who is really good at knowing the ins and outs for the program the

biggest problem that we have is you know there there's companies that do write

your own so like all state travelers they'll write it but it's all still a

FEMA policy right the problem is is it still goes through FEMA and the people

at FEMA half the time don't know these rules you know they're government

employees are not necessarily trained very well so you need to have a good

engineer that knows the ins and outs and then that way we can have the discussion

with the underwriters and find the underwriter that knows what they're

talking about so we can make sure that we're getting the right rate great Thank

You Rob Zabbia from Zabbia Insurance I'm going to be

putting a link to the websites that he mentioned where you can check on your

own and also to Rob's company website as well thanks again Rob and we are good to

go great thank you hello yes I'm talking to

you the person that watched my video to the very end thanks a lot for watching

if you enjoyed it please give me a big thumbs up subscribe to my YouTube

channel like me on Facebook I am a Licensed Real Estate Agent in New York

State but I also have a referral service that deals nationwide so if you're

looking for to buy or sell a house anywhere in the United States please

send me a text contact me via phone and I'll set you up with a local

professional in your area if you're in my vicinity I'd be more than happy to

help you out in any of your real estate transactions that you'd like this is

Mark Schreier from Century 21 American Homes and I'll talk to you soon