Minnesota Foreclosure Mini-Tours

A spontaneous video tour of some fine foreclosed homes
in Minneapolis area

If you are interested in buying a fabulous foreclosure, and would like to get in on one of our area tours, please contact me. We are planning several "Foreclosure Power Tours" through our Minnesota Exit Realty affiliates. We will target specific areas of the Twin Cities, and will be accompanied by experts in the real estate industry who can guide you through the houses, and answer your questions about finding and financing foreclosures in Minnesota. It will be fun....and it's FREE.

MLS Listings added to First Home Guide

First Time Home Buyers can now access MLS listings in most major metropolitan areas through First Home Guide. This recent addition to our first time home buyer web site provides our first time home buyer visitors with access to over 2 million homes for sale. First Home Guide has partnered with MLS Maps for most of the MLS listings, but we are also letting agents who have posted their property listings on First Home Guide add a link from each of their property listings to their MLS search page.

Stay tuned as First Home Guide is adding new real estate agents and their listings everyday.

First Time Home Buyers Get Free Access to Home Listings

First time home buyers can now access over 2 million homes for sale at www.firsthomeguide.com. First Home Guide has linked home buyers with real estate agents who display their local MLS listings on web sites in over 150 major metropolitan areas and cities. This is free to first time home buyers and gives them access to thousands of homes for sale in their local markets.

First home Guide will be adding an online First Time Home Buyer Seminar in late January in response to all the inquiries from first time home buyers around the country. Home buyers will be able to access the seminar anytime from anywhere and pause it and return whenever time permits. This is a general first home buyer seminar and First Home Guide will be adding more specific seminars in the near future on topics like FHA Loans, buying foreclosures, credit repair and more.

If you have an idea for a first time home buyer topic that you would like us to cover, please email us at info@firsthomeguide.com or visit us at www.firsthomeguide.com.

10 Questions First Time Home Buyers Should Ask

As a potential first time home buyer, your first home purchase can be very confusing. Since a home purchase is usually the single largest purchase an individual or family can make, there are a lot of factors to consider before jumping into the home ownership club.I have put together a list of questions that all first time home buyers should ask themselves before they make the commitment to purchase a home.

1. How much will it cost to work with a real estate agent?
As a buyer, you won't pay anything to have me work for you. In a residential real estate transaction, the seller pays the real estate commission. As an added bonus to working with me, I will give you 20% of the commission we receive from the seller. As a full service residential real estate brokerage, our company provides full MLS access to buyers as well as local real estate agents to help you select, negotiate, and purchase the home of your dreams. You can use your rebate to buy down points on your loan, pay for or lower your closing costs, or buy new furniture.

2. What is the difference between a "Buyer's Agent" and a "Seller's Agent"?
Why should I work with a "Buyer's Agent"?A "Buyer's Agent" is a real estate agent that is hired by the buyer to find the right home for the buyer. The main goal for a "Buyer's Agent" is to find the best home for a buyer, while negotiating the best price. A "Seller's Agent" is a real estate agent hired by the seller to market and sell their home. The main goal of a "Seller's Agent" is to sell the seller's home at the highest price possible. As a buyer, it is in your best interest to work with a "Buyer's Agent" because this will ensure that your agent is working for you and your best interests. Often times, when a "Seller's Agent" is acting on behalf of both the seller and buyer (when a buyer does not have his/her own agent), there is a conflict of interest, since a seller wants the highest possible price for the home, while the buyer wants the most reasonable price for the home.

3. Should I rent or buy?
In general, the rent vs. buy question compares the cost of renting to the after-tax cost of owning a home. Some factors to consider are rent increases and home price appreciation in your area. If you have a nice, cheap, rent-controlled apartment, then it may not make sense to buy. If you are planning to stay in the same place for a longer period of time and the property values in your area are getting higher, it may be a good decision to buy.

4. How much house can I afford?
In general, the amount you can afford to spend on a home is a combination of your cash on hand, your salary, and your outstanding debt. Your mortgage lender can review your financial condition and pre-qualify you for a mortgage amount you can afford. This coupled with the down payment you have available will determine the upper limit of homes you can afford.

5. What will my real estate professional do? Not do?
As your agent I will do the following:
work with you through the entire home buying process, from start to finish
search the entire MLS (Multiple Listing Service)
show you all of the homes you are interested in visiting
recommend houses which meet your criteria
negotiate on your behalf with the seller of the home
prepare the offer for the house
prepare all of the contracts associated with the home purchase
work with the title company, the lender, and the seller (or seller's agent) to arrange all necessary inspections
serve as your "point" person during the closing process
answer any questions you may have about any part of the real estate process
As your agent I will NOT do the following:
provide you with legal advice
provide you with financial advisory advice
pressure you to do anything that you don't feel comfortable doing
It is best to get legal advise from a qualified attorney and financial advise from a CPA or financial advisor.

6. When is the best time to get loan approval?
In order to have the best possible chance when submitting a home offer, I recommend that buyers get pre-approved for their home loan. Pre-approval simply means that the buyer has worked with a lender to determine what the maximum loan amount the buyer could qualify for with that lender, prior to selecting a house. Pre-approved buyers have several advantages, including increased negotiating power, since the seller knows that you can complete the transaction. In fact, some sellers will not even entertain offers unless the buyer is pre-approved.

7. What are the tax implications?
When you buy a home mortgage, interest and property taxes are generally deductible from the income taxes you itemize and pay in April. This means while monthly housing costs may be larger when you own than when you rent, what you save in taxes can make up some or all of the difference. For details, speak with a tax professional.

8. Have I seen everything on the market?
Ensure that you have seen all the properties available on the market by asking your agent. Often times, real estate agents have an incentive to only show clients their own featured listings, not all of the available listings on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service). One way to ensure you are shown every available home is to search for yourself. You can do this using my website, www.MikeStankewich.com which allows complete access to the MLS for consumers.

9. How will I know I am not overpaying for the property?
One way to ensure that you are paying a fair price for the property is to look at what other houses of similar size and characteristics have sold for in the past few months. As your real estate agent I can provide you with some comparable home sales in the area.

10. When can I move in?
After the home closes escrow, you can move in.


Mike Stankewich, Realtor, Huntington Beach, Orange County, California
ZipRealty, Inc.
Huntington Beach Real Estate

Minnesota First Time Home Buyer Programs

If your looking for first time home buyer help in Minnesota, check out the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency (MHFA). MHFA makes mortgages with below market interest rates available to first time homebuyers* through local lenders. Here are a few links to some of the first time home buyer programs they have available;

MHFA Mortgage Loan Programs
Minnesota Mortgage Program (MMP) - Mortgage Loans available throughout Minnesota

Community Activity Set-Aside (CASA) - Mortgage Loans for Specific Community Needs

Urban Indian Housing Program - Mortgage Loans for Native Americans

If you've always wanted a home of your own, now is the time to start. Even if you think you can't afford it, don't have a down payment or just have no idea where to start, MHFA encourages you to look around their web site and find out if homeownership is right for you.
*For MHFA loan purposes, first time homebuyer is defined as anyone who has not owned a home or had an interest in a home in the past three years.

First Time Home Buyer Process

Simple 9 Step Home buying process
First Home Guide is constantly working to simplify the home buying process. Our first time home buyer program is a simple 9 step home buying process.

1. Determine your budget.The first step in any first time home buyer program should be to determine a monthly budget, income minus expenses and savings, to determine how much of a mortgage payment you want to take on. (click here for budget form) In addition to your mortgage payment, which includes principle and interest on your loan, you will also have a monthly tax and home owners insurance payment. Most borrowers roll their taxes and insurance into their loan payment, (principle, interest, taxes, and insurance or "PITI"). If you are purchasing a Condominium or a townhouse, you will have a monthly "association" payment and usually that takes care of your home owners insurance. Either way, an important first step is to determine how much of your total monthly budget you will spend on your housing.
   
2. Find out how much you can borrow and determine the best type of mortgage.The next step in a first time home buyer program should be to find out how much of a mortgage payment you qualify for. You can use our mortgage calculators ( how much house can I afford ) to get an idea of how big of a loan you qualify for using your income and expenses. In addition to a traditional 30 year fixed rate mortgage, there are many other types of mortgage available to first time home buyers. Depending upon things like, how long you plan to live in your home, your debt to income ratio, how much of a down payment, if any, you have, and how much of a monthly payment you are comfortable with, you may want to consider another type of mortgage that has a lower fixed rate than a 30 year mortgage. These loans typically have a fixed rate for a shorter period of time such as 1, 3, 5, or 7 years. A mortgage professional can help you sort through all these options and chose the one that best meets your financial needs.
   
3. Get pre-approved. In order to get a true loan amount, you will need to speak with a mortgage Loan Officer who is familiar with a first time home buyer program and can factor in things like your credit score, debt to income, and other issues that determine how much of a mortgage we ultimately qualify for. This process can be initially be done over the phone in as little as 10 minutes, but ultimately you will need to meet with your loan officer to sign pre-loan documents and to provide the loan officer with your personal documents like, bank statements, pay stubs, W-2's, etc., to determine exactly how much of a loan amount you can qualify for and get you pre-approved.
   
4. Using the Internet, or a realtor, find homes in your chosen areas (city, zip code, etc.) and price range.Using the Internet to identify some homes saves time for both you and your realtor. Generally, most of the homes available for sale in any city are viewable on the Internet. Using a site like http://www.firsthomeguide.com/default.asp you can search for a home based on the city, price range, features, and other things. This allows you to quickly and efficiently narrow down your search to only those homes that meet your criteria. Using the Internet in this manner also helps educate the home buyer as to what is available within their price range. Our first time home buyer program strongly recommends using the internet in your process, especially if you are a first time home buyer.
   
5. Contact a Realtor and start visiting homes you are interested in. After you have familiarized yourself with what is available in the marketplace and found a number of homes that look interesting and affordable, you should contact a realtor. If you don't know a realtor, First Home Guide can help you find one with an expertise in the city where you want to buy a home, and who understands our first time home buyer program. A good realtor can make home shopping easier by using different tools available to them to search through even more homes, get you appointments to "walk through" homes you are interested in, and ultimately negotiate the price and write a purchase offer for the home you choose.
   
6. Make an offer and sign purchase agreement. In this step of our first time home buyer program, you will be making an offer on home. Generally when you make an offer on a home, if your offer is below the asking or listing price, the seller will respond with a counter offer. This is where it is important to be working with a good realtor as there are many things that can be considered in the negotiations like; who pays closing costs, will things like appliances and washer and dryer be included, day date and time of closing, etc.. This process is even more critical if you are buying your home with no down payment and you have little or no money for closing costs as well. Once the seller agrees to accept your offer, the next step is to have the home inspected and appraised. Generally all offers and purchase agreements are contingent on a satisfactory home inspection and an appraisal that supports the selling price.
   
7. Home inspection and appraisal. Your realtor can provide you with the names of some quality home inspection companies or you can use one of the companies listed in First Home Guides resource center. Your Mortgage loan officer will order an appraisal.
   
8. Close loan. The closing takes place at a title company and generally takes about 1-2 hours. The attendees include the Sellers and their agent, the buyers and their agent and the mortgage loan officer. The buyers/borrowers must bring a valid drivers license and a cashiers check if they are bringing money to the close.
   
9. Move into your new home!! This is the final step in the first time home buyer program. Once your closing is complete, and you are given the keys to your new home and it's off to the moving van! Call First Home Guide toll free @ 877-270-8100 for details about other First time home buyer program
   For more information and free resources for First Time Home Buyers, visit http://www.firsthomeguide.com/ Real estate agents can post your listings for free!!

First Time Home Buyers Resource Blog Launches

Thanks for checking out our blog, dedicated to helping first time home buyers find and finance their first home. As the First Home Guys, we bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to the home buying process. We are two guys, one a real estate agent and the other a loan officer who have years of experience helping people buy and finance homes. Having both been first time home buyers, we know how you feel when you begin the process. In the begining, it all may seem very confusing and scary but the good news is when you team up with people who specialize in working with first time home buyers, your dreams can become a reality instead of a nightmare. Not all real estate agents and loan officers are equal and it is important to find professionals who specialize in working with buyers like you, because finding and financing first homes requires a little more patience, a greater ability to explain things and a willingness to take the extra time to make it happen.

We are able to simplify the process and make it a suprisingly easy. We will be posting information from both the real estate and mortgage points of view on a regular basis. Feel free to comment or ask questions anytime. If we don't have the answer, we'll get it for you promptly. You can also see homes for sale in the First Time Homebuyer price range and many other resources at our website like information about first time home buyer seminars in your area and first time home buyer programs at www.firsthomeguide.com. For more information about us you can visit our personal websites at www.thegreatrate.com or www.mnagents.com
Enjoy our blog and happy house hunting!