What is the process of buying a home in Dallas?

So, what is the process of buying a home here in Dallas, Texas? There are some things you may want to ponder and consider a little bit more before making that move here to the Dallas, Texas area. 

Okay, so what exactly is the process of buying a home here in Dallas? Let's get into some of these things that you. Kind of need to think about consider before actually really considering if moving to Texas is what you wanna do.

Is Dallas For You

First up is Dallas really the place you wanna move and why are you moving here? It's the Bible, we are down in the south if you aren't religious or you might have a problem with it, maybe you do not want to be here because there are churches on every single corner and it may not matter what religion you are, you may have your own belief system. There are a lot of very kind and accepting people, no matter what church you go to. We have loved moving here, realizing that even though people may not be part of our faith, it is just a great understanding of the community. 

There are community activities throughout the schools, like the fellowship of Christian athletes at some of the middle schools and high schools that my kids have gone to.  Even when my daughter was in high school, during her cheer program, they all held a weekly Bible study. They were all from different faiths, but they all got together and just brought a little bit of the church into what they were learning. So it was just nice that these kids had a great sense of community, even in the schools.

Are you moving here because of family or are you bringing your family here? Did you hear how great our schools are here in Texas? And you just want your kids to have that great. The school community is able to be involved, and just get a great education by moving to the state of Texas. A lot of these schools rank quite highly here. So the education programs here in the Dallas Fort Worth area and throughout all of Texas are just a huge draw for why some people are moving out of different states throughout the country, knowing how highly rated a lot of our schools are.

Also being here in Dallas. It is quite culturally diverse. We have found so many great communities.  Our kids have become pretty good friends with kids of all different nationalities and cultures and we just really love how diverse it is here. Even playing club sports and competitive sports you get kids from everywhere.  And if you're moving here and you need to work on your manners, well, y'all be better fixing to change that because here in Texas, everything is yes ma'am no ma'am, yes, sir. And no, sir. Even the adults say it to other adults. It is so nice to see the manners of some of these kids. Quite frankly, when we moved here and our kids were a little on the younger side, It was pretty difficult to teach them to say that is not very respectful and say yes ma'am or no ma'am.

It is just the manners out of some of these kids and just going into a store and being like yes. Ma'am when somebody asks you a question, just show this great amount of respect, no matter your age or who you're interacting with. 

Of course, being here in Texas, We are very patriotic, On any holiday, whether it's the 4th of July or Memorial Day, you see flags flying and people have a lot of pride here in Texas people fly flags on their trucks, and yes, in Texas, we may not have a whole lot of mountains, but we have a whole lot of trucks, and people are flying flags.

We absolutely love our country here in Texas.  And of course here in Texas, we love our country music.  I remember going off to college and my very first college roommate was from the great state of Texas I hated country music at the time and she was always blasting it. Over time I got, broken down a little bit on respecting country music, and here in Texas, you hear it everywhere you go.

Here in Texas, people definitely love the outdoors, everything from their hunting and their fishing and their camping. We do it all hence, why so many people obviously need their trucks. 

Texas also tends to be on the more conservative side. We are a red state, which Texans are very proud to talk about. If you have a hard time Dealing with conservative people. Texas may also not be the place for you. Texas has been changing a little bit, but at the same time, people will talk all the time about don't bring that blue into our state.

But say you've got this far and you realize, you know what, I love all that stuff about Texas now's probably a good time that you might wanna reach out. You may want to call us so that we can help dive into what it really is like living here in Texas.

We truly have loved living here the last 10 years, we love helping people make that move here as well and besides this, when you get ready to move here, there are a lot of different areas that you may want to consider. Do you want to have more of that city feel? Do you want to find somewhere out in the country with a little bit more land? Are you moving here for the schools or the sports or the nightlife? There are so many things going on here in the great state of Texas and here in Dallas, there. So many different places that you could choose from. So that's why we are always saying, reach out to us, call us, walk us through your, wants, your needs and what you're truly looking for, and why you're moving to Texas.

Get Prequalified

So you've reached out, you've decided you wanted to come. We've talked you through some areas. Our market is crazy hot right now, but if you really know, you wanna move to Texas, you need to get prequalified because if you're not, you're wasting everybody's time. The housing market is starting to shift a little bit, but it doesn't mean that homes still aren't getting multiple offers. So you wanna be prepared. And not only that, we highly recommend using a local lender. And if you don't have a lender that works in Texas, that is familiar with what goes on here in Texas, reach out. Let us hook you up with one of ours. Quite a few local lenders are fantastic. In fact, just the other day, we got somebody under contract who was going outta the country for a couple of weeks and it was going to throw this big wrench into the seller's timetable. We got one of our lenders on top of it. He had everything squared away, ready to go and because our client was totally pre-qualified, they had all of their information in the second that contract was executed. The lender was able to just run with it. They were able to get in touch with everybody that they needed. Get in touch with an appraiser, to put a rush on everything that needed to be going and were able to close in just over two weeks, which with a conventional loan can sometimes be quite difficult to do, when there's a holiday in the middle of it. Like I said, get pre-qualified find a great local lender, and if you don't have one reach out and let us put you in contact with one. 

Let Your Realtor Get to Know You

Are you moving here for a job? Are you moving here to be closer to your family?  These are definitely some questions that we can help you with. if you haven't lived here before, and you don't know how these freeways work, you don't know how long your commute is going to take you, or maybe you like being close to family, but maybe not too close, we can give you some great recommendations of some areas that might not too far away on the complete opposite end of the metroplex, because sometimes when you. On the one end of Dallas and you need to be on the other end of Fort worth. People don't realize how long that can actually take you to get from one part of the suburbs to the other. That's another reason why you can reach out to. Let us help you kind of figure out some of these quirks and where you might be wanting to think about actually putting down your roots here in Texas.

When we reach out and get to know you, we don't have to just get on a phone call. We actually love meeting our clients through zoom. We like to get to know one another. We like to get to know their families and their kids and just get to know their personalities. The more we get to know you, the better we can help guide you on where you might want to live, and doing that will just help you have a much better experience when you make that move here to Dallas because we have helped clients move all over the metroplex from the south part of Dallas, up to the way north part of Dallas, up into Frisco and Celina from the east side to the west side. We really pride ourselves in trying to get to know all of these areas. So that way we can help our clients make a much easier move here when they've come to Dallas.

So you're, pre-qualified, we've helped you determine, what kind of areas you might be looking for. Maybe you wanna come out and actually tour these areas for yourself. We love to help guide our clients on some great areas to go check out. It doesn't mean you have to go drive through every single neighborhood because there are a lot of great ones, but we can give you some of the main highlights to go check out that way you know, Hey, I'm gonna find this neighborhood and it might only take me, 10 or 15 minutes to get to all of these favorite, these great restaurants that we found or to shopping or to some of these sporting events that you may know you want to go and take part in. So we help guide and direct our clients that do wanna come into town before actually purchasing a home. We can still set them up on the home search, sometimes we start a little bit more broad so they can kind of see the homes that start to come on the market. Once they start to get a little bit overwhelmed, we can narrow it down because they can see some of these neighborhoods and where they wanna go.

Option Period - Pay Attention or Else

Let's get into the nitty-gritty about actually writing a contract and putting an offer out on a home here in Texas. You find the perfect home you've seen three or four and you know, the house that you actually want to purchase.

So here in Texas, after you write an offer on a house and the contract gets accepted and the offer is fully executed, we have what is called an option period. So when I moved from Arizona, we had a pretty standard 10-day inspection period.  Here in Texas, you determine how long you want your option, period to be a lot of times you want it to be like seven to 10 days, but in this hot seller's market, as we have had, people are either waving the option period or putting in maybe a two or three day option period and we have to pay for that option period.

So when the contract is executed,  you pay for the option period and your earnest money, your earnest money could be anywhere from about 1% of the sales price on up or, and your option money can be anywhere from, let's say a hundred dollars to a thousand dollars that is totally determined on you and your agent and how strong you want your offer to be. At the end of the option, period, say you're like, there is no way I'm moving into this house. There are too many things wrong with it. You have to forfeit your option. Money, no matter what. But if you actually cancel that contract within the option period, you will be able to get your earnest money back and you have to pay both your option and your earnest money to the title company within three days and if you don't do that, technically, it's kind of like saying. I waived my right to an option period altogether you could end up losing your earnest money as well. But a lot of times people don't realize how important it is to get this paid in a timely manner. Some people think that you can just get it all back. That is why they give us our option period. And unless you totally waive it and you don't want to be at risk of losing both your earnest and option money, you gotta make sure that you get that paid as soon as possible.

and once you're done with your inspection period, you realize everything is good to go. No other problems that need to be done, you've negotiated all of your repairs, you know, the things that the seller's gonna be taken care of and, you know, the things that you're going to be taken care of closing, but throughout that option period, that's when all of your negotiations happen, that's when you write up whatever amendments you need to have any of these repairs taken care of, whether it's by the seller or the buyer. If you don't negotiate it within your option, period,  then basically you're agreeing to take them home as-is. You always want to make sure that process is done as quickly as possible. That's why you have your agent like me, help you to do those negotiations, to protect you, to make you fully aware of exactly what you're getting into when purchasing your new home, but you can also always extend that option period. Say you realize you need another sort of inspection. You can extend that option period as needed.  That is entirely up to negotiations as well. But a lot of times it just goes to show, I really want this house.  Quickly as possible to make sure that the contract really gets solidified and that the sellers know that they have a strong offer and can actually be preparing for their next move as well. after that inspection period and pretty much. The seller's in charge of what the seller needs to be in charge of and at this point, that's when your lender and the title company get to work, your lender is ordering your appraisal. They're making sure there's no cloud on title that all the title work is done and everything is legal in kosher. They determine if there needs to be a survey done on the property, or if there's really been no extra structural work outside and the current survey is valid or maybe the seller can't find one at all that all has to be done within that timeframe as well, but you don't have to be in charge of it. You just kind of have to make sure your real estate agent is on top of it with the lender and the title company so that they're doing their job so that the contract can close on time, they will also order the appraisal and make sure that the value comes in. Typically if you're financing the purchase of your home and they will have to conduct an appraisal, but if you are paying cash for it, we don't have to determine the value of this property. So it's good to go.

The Finish Line

But at that point, you're just waiting around for the clear to close, and you should be, packing up your boxes, packing up your moving truck, ordering the movers, and just getting prepared to move into your new home. If you're moving out of state, we are always recommending you do that as soon as possible because movers right now can be quite difficult to come by. 

Right before closing, typically the day before or two days before, if you absolutely have to, you're always going to want to do a final walkthrough and say you can't be there for it because you're moving from out of state and your real estate agent like me can go and do that for you say they can FaceTime you, but that's where you go and determine, Hey, the seller agreed to do this and the seller didn't get it done. The seller promised to do this, and you just gotta wanna go through and check all the boxes so that whatever was negotiated actually is taken care of. That's when you get your keys. Unless you've let the sellers stay back temporarily with a lease back. But regardless it's smooth sailing after that, you have the keys and you get to move into your home. 

Home Warranty

Typically we recommend to our clients that they get at least a home warranty for the first year of living in their home, whether or not, they want to keep that home warranty on the home forever. But within that first year, you don't really know the quirks of your home. You don't know if maybe something wasn't disclosed properly. We have had that happen before,  it helps to cover you with that peace of mind thinking, what, if my refrigerator goes out or my AC system goes out because somebody forgot to do some maintenance on it, or didn't tell us that they knew about a slow leak. It's just better to have that peace of mind just in case those extra problems may arise.

But like we said before, we want your home-buying process to be as smooth as possible.  So if you're planning on moving here to the great state of Texas and you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to reach out, let us know what we can do to help you make that smooth move here to Texas that much easier.