Buying Orlando Florida property - the basics

Buying Orlando Florida property is like buying any other product - just more expensive and more complicated!

You can make it as simple or as complicated as you want but here are some general guidelines that will help with many of the steps that you need to undertake.

We’ve divided the process into three main stages:

1. Finding Your Orlando Florida property

2. Offer and Contract

3. Closing

On this page, we’ve covered the first of these three steps, and we will be dealing with the others in future postings.

So let’s start with the first step, Finding Your Orlando Florida property. In general, this is as follows:

• Decide on the area that you want to live in i.e. drive the city until you are familiar enough with different areas that you can decide that you want to live in a certain area of town. You will probably have some important questions to answer, such as:

• If you have children, which schools are the best for them?
• What about crime in the area?
• Are you close to shopping, parks, the gym, etc.?
• How far to the main freeways, etc.?
• Are you buying in an area that has a history of good appreciation?

• Decide on your budget for a home i.e. How much do you have to put down and how much are you able to finance - and what can you afford in terms of your monthly payment? You may want to consult a mortgage broker or your banker for assistance here. Some buyers prefer to carry out this step in advance and get themselves pre-approved for financing as it gives them a better bargaining position with the seller. With the current mortgage and economic uncertainty, we think that is good advice.
  

• Decide on the style and size of home that you can afford and extra amenities that are important to you, for example:

• Is a home on the water important to you?
• Do you need a 3 car garage for your boat or other hobby?
• Do you need an extra bedroom for Aunt Jane when she comes to visit?
• Do you have to live in a community with tennis courts, and swimming pool?
• Do you want a big yard, small yard, or no yard, brick home/stucco, etc, etc, etc.
  

• Drive the communities and narrow down the ones that you would be happy to live in (within your budget, obviously).

All of these steps can be performed and completed by yourself if you have the time and the knowledge. If you don’t and you want assistance in finding a Orlando Florida property, enlist the services of a good real estate agent.

[Ok, we know, “good real estate agent” might be an oxymoron to many of you. However, a good one is worth his weight in gold. He can cut your learning curve to near zero and keep you out of major trouble and headaches. Anyhow, again we'll be covering the pros and cons of using a Realtor as a buyer’s agent in future postings].

Once you locate the area then you need to get busy finding a property in that area or community/communities you’ve chosen. If you have answered the above questions then you should have a better idea when you see an Orlando Florida property that meets these requirements.

Likewise, be reasonable. You will almost never find a home with every requirement at the price that you want to pay. (We say almost never because it does happen occasionally!) You need to be willing to compromise.

And when you do find a home that meets your requirements, don’t wait too long. Murphy’s law states that when you are interested in a home, there are usually others ready to pounce on it too - even in these times of slow sales and desperate sellers.