Frequently asked Questions

Mortgage rates do not exactly follow the Fed rate. Mortgage rates typically drop in anticipation of a fed cut. Sometimes they don’t drop at all when the FED drops rates. Mortgage rates more closely follow the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield.

If and when rates drop again, the buyer pool is going to go up and so is your competition because we still have historically low inventory. So, you may have to get in bidding wars for any home in your price point in decent condition. For example, if you are buying a $200K home and have to pay $10,000 more for the same home even with the 6.25 rate, your monthly payment actually goes up by $30 over a 6.5 rate.

For years, sellers almost always paid the buyer’s agent’s compensation. In 2024, a national settlement was reached because of some unfair practices in other states (Georgia had been fairly protecting buyers and sellers for decades) and it was forbidden for seller’s agents to publish the compensation they would be paying the buyer’s agent but it was still allowable for the seller to pay compensation to the buyer’s agent. In Athens, Watkinsville, and surrounding counties, I am finding that most of the time, the seller is still paying the buyer’s agent’s commission. Sometimes, though, they are not paying all of the compensation and the buyer will pay some of my compensation. We will agree on the amount I will be paid when we start working together. When we make an offer on a property, I will put our agreed upon compensation in that offer. If the seller does not agree to pay that then you can decide to not move forward with that property, have me push back in negotiations to get them to pay in order to move forward with the house, or pay me the difference between what they are offering and what we had agreed to. There will never be any surprises for you.

Buying a home is not only one of the biggest financial investments you make but it is where you do your life! I promise that you don’t know what you don’t know. I both bought and sold homes unrepresented before I became an agent and I look back at the money I lost and stress I endured because I didn’t know what my rights were and the best way to negotiate. You need to have someone representing you and your best interests who has experience and is a good creative problem solver, who will listen to what your needs really are.

It is fun to look through homes on Zillow or Realtor. I do it when I am out of town visiting a new area. When you go through Zillow though you are getting an agent that is paying Zillow a lot of money to get your name and number. Agents are essentially buying leads. I have found that the agents who often pay $1000’s a month for leads are newer agents who are trying to get going in the business or agents whose philosophy is “to turn and burn.” These agents are often just looking for volume and don’t prioritize building relationships and giving quality service to have clients for life. I often hear from people who are working with an agent they got off Zillow that they live and work an hour away from the area the client is trying to find a home. They are not a local expert and they often don’t really want to drive that far to show the house that just hit the market. You deserve to have a highly referred local expert help you find your home.

The best way to make sure a seller has completed a repair and done it correctly is to pay for a re-inspection before closing. We do ask sellers to provide receipts from their contractors but we have had contractors not speak to our clients about the receipt “because they weren’t the ones who had paid.”

The final walk through is typically done the day before or the day of closing. As the buyer, you are making sure that the seller has left the house broom swept clean, that the appliances and things that were supposed to remain with the home are still there and that a tree hasn’t fallen or some other disaster hasn’t happened since you were last at the home. Occasionally during the final walk through I have had to negotiated further cleaning services for clients, discovered a new plumbing leak that wasn’t taken care of before closing, and informed seller’s agents that there was still junk that needed to be removed from the home.

The financing contingency protects the buyer from losing their Earnest Money or defaulting on the loan if for some reason they cannot qualify for the loan. If let’s say you lose your job between putting the house under contract but before the end of your financing contingency, you can terminate the contract, keep your Earnest Money and not have breached the contract. The financing contingency also contains an appraisal contingency which is actually a separate contingency. Read, Contingencies - What Are They and Why Do I Need Them? to learn more.

It is your house and I will never tell you what you have to do! Often there are inexpensive ways to make some big improvements on how your house will look before marketing your home. I will always make a range of suggestions and you can decide what you will or won’t be able to do. I also will have a price range of where to list your house depending on what condition it is in once you are ready for photographs. Of course, the better shape your home is in, the faster it will typically sell.

With so many people having locked in a low interest rate, it can be hard to lose that rate by selling your house. Read this blog I wrote to cover the nuance of this question.

We always find out what your schedule is and find a way to work around it. My suggestion is for the first weekend to try to be out of the house and allow for as many showings as possible. After that, we can automatically block out times that you can’t have agents showing your home. We have options that give you control of how showings are set up with as much or as little involvement from us. As far as pets and kids and the messes they seem to endlessly make, I have some tips and suggestions I am happy to share on making that process easier.

No, the seller does not choose the appraiser but neither does the buyer. Typically no one can actually choose the appraiser. The lender of the buyer has a pool of appraisers and the appraiser picks homes to appraise when the lender requests an appraisal. The one exception to this is if it is a cash deal and in the contingency it is marked that there will be an appraisal. On that form, it is a point of negotiation on who actually picks the appraiser so it could be the buyer (more typical) or the seller. I may have had one cash buyer ever choose to get an appraisal on a property they are buying.

Typically it is a good idea to let the inspector and potentially the buyer and their agent be able to talk freely and be in the home without you present for the inspection. Occasionally I have had clients who have needed to stay due to a work at home situation and as long as you stay out of the inspectors way, that should be ok.

Great question. There continues to be very limited inventory and we don’t see price averages decreasing much overall but we are seeing a lot of price drops on listed homes. However, there are also not as many buyers looking. I would say it is currently a balanced market. I still have some homes getting multiple offers the first day they hit the market and others that are sitting for months before they get an offer. Also, for the first time in my career, I am seeing more buyers and sellers not being able to come to an agreement. Some sellers are just taking their house off the market if they don’t get what they think they should for their home. And, some buyers are deciding to just continue renting or stay in the current home they own.

Earnest money (EM) is the money that a buyer commits to paying typically within 5 days of the binding agreement. It is cashed and held either by the real estate brokerage or the closing attorney in a trust account. If the buyer purchases the house, this money is credited to them towards the money they need to close. If they give more EM then they need to close, they will get a check at closing for the difference (which sometimes happens if you have a 100% financed loan). If a buyer terminates the contract during due diligence for any reason or due to a contingency then the buyer will keep their EM. If the buyer defaults then the EM is the total “damages” that the buyer would give the seller. It is very important for the seller to make sure that the EM is high enough to cover all their potential expenses if there is a last minute default (moving costs, an extra month or two of mortgage and utilities, etc).

There are times when because of distance or conflicts you can’t attend closing. There are a few options the closing attorney can give you to allow you to close remotely, i.e. anyone can do a limited power of attorney to have someone else go in their stead and sign for them. The closing attorney offer you options to choose from.

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