Part 2 First Time Home Buyer Guide: When Can I Look at Homes?

In Part 1 of the Las Vegas First Time Home Buyer Guide, I stressed the importance of shopping your financing options and getting approved for a loan.  Once buyers are qualified they are usually excited to go shopping but they need to make sure they are ready to buy before they waste any time looking around.

Now is the time to familiarize yourself with all of the types of purchases (Read Las Vegas Sales & Transaction types right here).  The two biggies you need to become familiar with are Las Vegas Short Sales & Las Vegas REO (aka Las Vegas Bank Owned).  These two types of sales account for between 60-70% of Las Vegas Area Closed Transactions.  While buyers are drooling about bargains these days, a distressed property sale presents it’s own challenge so it is essential to become familiar with those transaction types.

Well priced Las Vegas homes fetch multiple offers.  Be prepared to write more than one offer – in other words – you will have to keep an open mind to fall in love with more than one home!

Here is a time frame that you can expect to be a rough guideline on home purchasing (this does NOT include a short sale purchase):

• 1-2 months of looking at homes and writing offers
• 2 days to three weeks for sellers to consider your offer
• 45-60 days escrow period

The above depends on how aggressive you and your lender are with wanting to close.  Our atmosphere is what I call “hurry up and wait!”  This means we have to perform (and you better hurry) and then a waiting period ensues while we wait on the seller to perform (signatures, cleaning up title, responding to addendums or counters, etc).

Trying to “perfectly time” a move these days is near impossible.  If you are renting, you may want to time it so your closing date will be 30-45 days prior to your lease expiring.  This way if there are unusual circumstances with your transaction you won’t feel enormous stress to close.  If your timing is too close to your lease ending and your landlord is not willing to renew on a month to month basis – you will want to consider exploring short term living options.

In the next part of this series (#3), I will explore interviewing Las Vegas area real estate agents so you can build your home buying team with confidence!

Renee Burrows

Real Estate Agent in the Las Vegas - Henderson Area. Affiliated with: NAR, NVAR, GLVAR (Local Realtor Associations), REBAC (Real Estate Buyer's Agency Council), NABPOP (National Association of Broker Price Opinion Professionals) Seven Designations/Certifications: REALTOR®, ABR (Accredited Buyer's Representative), AHWD (at Home With Diversity), RSPS (Resort & Second Property Specialist), SFR (Short Sale/Foreclosure Resource), SRES (Senior Real Estate Specialist), SRS (Seller Representative Specialist).

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