Are you in a situation where you want to sell your house but you don’t know where to move to? In this video, I’m going to tell you about our Smooth Move Program, which utilizes a bridge loan to streamline the process. We’ll talk with Andy of First Bank to find out how it all works and see if this option is right for you.

Is It Time To Move?

Are you in a real quandary because it's time to sell your house but are scared of the process? Many sellers want to put their homes on the market but don’t know what their next step will be. While it can be very frightening, our program makes it easy.

Our Smooth Move Program can help you make the transition from your existing home to your dream home. It will also help you maintain that dream home-first attitude. Andy, from First Bank, will tell us how a bridge loan works in our program to make your dreams a reality.

Using A Bridge Loan

First Bank is a portfolio lender that holds some of its own paper. That means they have options that are a little bit outside of the box. My favorite program that the bank offers is the bridge loan.

As a privately held bank that owns a mortgage company, First Bank offers all the traditional mortgages: conventional, FHA, VA, and jumbo. However, they also offer internal loans that are called portfolio loans—which include the bridge loan. You can think of a bridge loan as a temporary mortgage that allows you to buy the next house before you've actually sold your current house.

Using a bridge loan takes a lot of the stress out of the market. Because it’s such a tight market right now, it's great to be a seller but can be really tough to be a buyer. The bridge loan allows us to take some of the stress out of being a buyer and helps you to identify and purchase your next house before you sell your current house.

The Qualifications

With a bridge loan, you don't have to qualify for both houses at the same time, as that’s a very challenging feat for people to achieve. When First Bank looks at a bridge loan profile, they just want to know that once you’ve sold your current house, gotten some of the equity out of it, and are rid of that existing mortgage payment, you would qualify for a traditional loan on the new house.

If you've got good equity in your current house and strong credit, you’ll likely be a good candidate for a bridge loan. Andy explains that First Bank is doing a ton of these loans currently because it’s so hard to get a listing agent or a seller to accept a contingent offer. The bridge loan allows the bank to offer a noncontingent approval letter; this means they’re telling that seller, ‘Hey, these are very strong buyers, they do own a home right now, but they don't have to sell that house for us to close on the new one.’

The noncontingent approval letter gives you a lot of strength and leverage when it comes to being a buyer in this market.

How It Works

When using a bridge loan, we can have your house prepped and ready for market—including pre-establishing photos and marketing materials—and get everything ready to go for your house. The only thing that will wait is the price tag because the market does fluctuate.

We look for your dream home today and start on that process while you're pre-approved for the bridge loan within. When we find the dream home, we can go in and make an offer, utilizing the letter from Andy for the bridge loan.

Exploring Your Options

Within the bridge loan, there are two options in two pathways. The first option is to utilize the bridge loan and not stress over the sale of your house until after we've gotten everything done and moved into the new house. This works tremendously for some people.

Personally, nine years ago, I bought the house that my wife and I and my family live in. We established the purchase of the new house utilizing the bridge loan so that we didn't have to write a contingency. We would have never, ever been accepted for this house without that; they would have taken another offer that didn't have it.

We wrote the offer with a position and immediately put our house on the market that weekend. I didn't sleep for four days getting it ready, and it was almost good to go. We put it on the market, sold it in the first weekend, and didn't have to use the bridge loan. Rather, we used it as a tool, having that pre-qualification to go into the next one, and ended up having a traditional mortgage.

There's no other lender I know of that has that capability to make your smooth move transition as well as First Bank can.

Changing The Program

My case is certainly not unusual. Andy says that about 20% of the time they write a bridge loan approval letter, the client can sell their house fast enough that they don't even need the bridge loan. That’s fine with First Bank, as 95% of the mortgages they do are the traditional VA, FHA, jumbo, and conventional loans.

When I get your house on the market and get a contract on it—and the buyers can close on or before the purchase of your new house—we just changed the loan program. We’ll never close on the bridge; we'll just turn around and change it to a traditional mortgage, which is absolutely easy to do.

The Downside Of The Bridge Loan

When using the bridge loan, there is one downside: you'll have to close twice. You'll close initially on the temporary mortgage—the bridge loan—and then close on the refinance once you sell your house. First Bank will likely refinance the bridge into a traditional.

While you're not required to use First Bank for the refinance, they probably do 99% of our bridge loan refinances. If they do your bridge loan refinance, we'll waive all of our lender fees. We can also typically reuse the appraisal and the survey, making closing costs less than half the traditional amount.

While there is a little bit of a downside to the bridge loan, there is something you can use to offset it. Because First Bank doesn’t require you to list your house until you've moved into the new one, you can sometimes sell your existing house for a little bit more money when it's not occupied. The other nice thing about it is that you don't have to take the first offer that comes in. You don't have that stress of needing to hurry up and sell within 30 days. This allows you to negotiate from a position of strength.

Your Mortgage Payment

When you use the bridge loan, you're only making one mortgage payment during that time. You're not making a mortgage payment on the new house for up to six months. So while it’s an interest-only loan, First Bank defers the payments on the new house for up to six months. That way, you're not making two payments at the same time.

This allows you to have plenty of time to sell your house. While you don’t necessarily need all of that time in this market, it’s nice to know you have it. but you have it. If you're doing a traditional mortgage, it usually takes about 45 to 60 days before that first payment is due. If you close with a bridge loan, you've got up to six months before you're making any kind of payment on the new house.

This creates a really smooth process. Normally, there is a lot of stress and moving parts to organize and put into place. Using a bridge loan creates an easy transition at no extra cost than a traditional route.

Now Is Your Chance

This is a wonderful time to sell a home and buy a new one. In fact, it may be the chance of a lifetime, as home prices are at record highs. It’s great to be a seller right now; with the Smooth Move Program and a bridge loan, it allows you to take some of the downsides out of being a buyer.

It’s tough to be a buyer, especially when you're making contingent offers and need to compete. This program helps remove some of those struggles and allows you to leverage and take advantage of the market. It allows you to sell your house for the maximum dollar and take some of the stress out of being a buyer by removing contingencies and letting you buy before you actually sell.

So if you're thinking about selling, you want to move, and you want to take advantage of the market’s interest rates while they're low, this is an opportunity for you to make a smooth move transition and get into your dream home. Remove your fears and let's make this happen! Feel free to reach out to me and I’ll be happy to help you get started.

Are you thinking about moving to Frisco, Texas, or somewhere in the North Dallas suburbs and want to know what living there is like? In this video, we’re going to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly of life in Frisco, Texas. We’ll look at everything from the weather to traffic so you know exactly what to expect.

The Texas Weather And Outdoor Activities

The first thing that everybody knows about the North Dallas, Texas area is the weather. We’re in Texas and it does get very hot, though we have really mild winters. It will only fall below freezing maybe once or twice a year, and we might get snow every few years. Our summers, though, do tend to be 4-5 months long with temperatures ranging from 90 to 100 degrees—and a few days above 100.

If you have a pool, you can heat the pool and stretch it to get 6-7 months of pool time every year. This makes the weather really great. On the other hand, if you're looking for outdoor life, we don't have a lot of rolling hills or mountains—and we don't have any oceans here.

However, there is a close lake and a few reservoirs that are man-made dammed up lakes for drinking water and recreation. They're fantastic, with one right next to Frisco. It provides a lot of great boating and outdoor recreation, and plenty of the locals go visit lakes on the weekends or have a lake house for their use.

Frisco’s Housing Market

One of the great things about this area has always been the cost of living. Frisco, however, is one of the slightly more expensive suburbs in the north. The 2020 median home price in Frisco was $438,000, but in the last month, we've had a steep escalation in housing prices. With the cost of building in 2021, the median home price in Frisco was $510,000.

What makes it so desirable is that many of the houses look a bit newer compared to the Plano or Dallas areas. A lot of the out-of-town people coming in prefer something a little bit newer, as it's less maintenance. And of course, when you move to another area, you're worried about the foundation. Newer homes are just a bit easier to maintain, and there’s value in that.

Most of those homes are going to be in HOA-type communities. We get some folks that just don't want HOA, but that's a little bit of a tough grab in Frisco’s mostly newer communities. There are many masterplan communities, gated communities, and some condos and townhouses with amazing Walk Scores here. It's one of the few places in the Metroplex where you can really go somewhere that's got a great Walk Score, and the downtown area is great. At Christmas time, they have Santa's coming from the sky, an ice skating rink, and everything decorated beautifully.

Plenty To See And Do

One great thing about Frisco is that there's always something to do. There’s a glut of amazing restaurants to go to, and it seems like there’s always a new one popping up to give you something new to try. You'll never run out of places to go.

There are also a variety of amenities between the shops at Legacy and Legacy West. Grandscape is just over in The Colony, and they've got Nebraska Furniture Mart and Scheels Sporting Goods as well. There’s even an indoor Ferris Wheel that you’ve got to check out.

Aside from plenty of shopping, Frisco also has 5 pro sports teams. The Star is the practice facility for the Dallas Cowboys. They also have other professional teams with the Dr. Pepper Stadium, including the RoughRiders and the Sidekicks.

Other attractions in Frisco include the Soccer Hall of Fame, Railroad Museum, KidZania USA, and Stonebriar Centre shopping mall. You can even try indoor skydiving at iFly, head to the go-kart tracks for a race, or practice your shot at the indoor shooting range.

At The Colony, you can also see a concert at one of the venues. Since we’re in Dallas—with about 7.5 million people—there’s always a great musical event going on. Frisco has several smaller venues you’ve also got to check out. Whatever you’re into, Frisco has got it.

Traffic And Congestion

While it’s great that Frisco has plenty to do and see, the downfall is that this comes with traffic. People from all of the other suburbs are driving into Frisco regularly for work and for play. That means congestion traffic. Some people might prefer to live in a suburb that borders Frisco, where you can take advantage of all those amenities within about a 20-minute drive. This way, you're not fighting that congestion every single day.

Speaking of traffic, another one of the downfalls in Frisco is the tolls. They’re very hard to avoid. The two major thoroughfares that go through Frisco are the Dallas North Tollway and the 121. Both of those are toll roads, so if you have to travel those to go to and from work regularly, you can pretty much just add an extra tax to your regular monthly expenses.

We’ve talked to people that take the toll roads, and their monthly cost might be $60 to $200, depending on how far they have to go and how often. On the other hand, Frisco is within proximity to everything you could want, taking just 30 minutes to get to downtown Dallas or north to Prosper for shopping. You can also easily take the 121 to the airport in about 20 minutes.

The Job Market And Schools

What about the job market in Frisco? Last year in 2020, Wallethub named Frisco the number one place for midsize cities in job growth and development. There’s a number of Fortune 500 companies like Lay's, JC Penney’s, Toyota, and Chase Bank that all have their headquarters right in the Frisco Plano 121 corridor area. This means there are tons of jobs. Frisco is an ideal place to live for our well-developed road systems and low crime rates, while still being close to all of Dallas’ jobs.

Another pro of living in Frisco is the fantastic school system. It’s one of the things that draws people in. When people are moving into the Metroplex, Frisco is almost always on everybody's list to call home. The high school size is kept a little bit smaller, with about 17 students for every teacher.

A couple of the suburbs in the area—like Allen and Plano—have really big high schools that are among the largest in the country. Instead of 4,000 to 7,000 students in one school, Frisco keeps their high schools at about half the size. This gives kids a lot more opportunity, especially if they happen to be athletes.

The Cost Of Living

One of the problems of the cost of living in Texas is the property taxes. While we have good housing prices and no state income tax, property taxes tend to be quite high here compared with most of the country. However, Frisco is one of the lower ones in the Metroplex for the property tax rate on the Denton County side because it's split into Collin County and Frisco County.

This is one thing to keep in mind when coming here. When you see the higher price tag, you're not paying some of the extra taxes that other places pay for the development of the utility districts in those spots. You’re also not paying quite as high of property taxes as in some of the other surrounding places.

The offset is that Frisco has some amazing city parks and recreation. They've got three really awesome parks there that anybody would love to take their kids to. In addition, they also have 16,000 acres of parks and recreation, over 90 miles of hiking and bike trails, and plenty of outdoor things to do—as long as you're not looking for the mountains and altitude.

Is Frisco, Texas Right For You?

I hope this gave you a good idea of the pros and cons of living in Frisco, Texas. If you have any other questions about something we didn’t cover, feel free to reach out to us and we’d love to help.  If you're looking to buy or sell in the North Dallas suburbs of Plano, Allen, Frisco, or McKinney, Texas, we’ll be happy to assist you.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel so you never miss an episode of our show, all about living in the North Dallas suburbs. Stay tuned to see what we feature next! 

Are you thinking about moving to the Allen, Texas area and want to know what it’s like? In this video, we’re going to give you the good, bad, and ugly of living in Allen, Texas. We’ll look at everything from food to weather so you know exactly what to expect when you come here.

All About Allen, Texas

Allen, Texas is a typical suburb, a nice area with a little bit of everything. We've got a population of about 110,000, and the average income is around $115,000 to $120,000 a year. This community is in the upper end of the Texas area, close to 83% of the average and about 65% of the average in the metropolitan area.

In addition to our great socioeconomics, we have amazing diversity. Allen residents are foodies, and we love to eat. We don't want just one kind of food; we want a variety. Our diverse demographics bring in a lot of diversity in food, events, and things happening In the area. We’ve lived here for about 20 years and enjoy the small-town feel with plenty of amenities.

Jobs And Commuting

One of the great amenities that Allen offers is jobs. With our high income level, there are obviously plenty of great jobs that aren't located too far away. While many of the really big employers aren't in Allen, they're all within a 20 to 25-minute drive.

This makes Allen a great place to live. We don't have the same level of congestion that a few of those spots might have, while still allowing you to be close to work. We are centered close to Highway 75, giving you easy access to GW Bush and Highway 121. This puts you about 30-35 minutes away from the airport, 25 minutes to downtown Dallas, and about 20 minutes to all the amenities in the Frisco and Plano areas

We love going to Downtown Dallas, and we get there in about 30 minutes without any traffic. We also don't have to pay the toll every time. So if you come home from work, you don't have to take the highway if you don't want to because you have easy access to 75.

Shopping And Restaurants

Allen offers a variety of amenities, including great shopping at the Allen Outlets, Watters Creek, Fairview, and Allen Villages. There are also plenty of awesome restaurants in the area. If you don't know, DFW is known for having more restaurants per capita than almost anyplace else in the United States.

Depending on what list you happen to look at, DFW will also be anywhere in the top 5 or top 10. While many of our eateries are chain restaurants, we also have our fair share of mom-and-pop shops. Our diversity brings in a lot of ethnic varieties as well, so if you're into food, we will lead you to all kinds of places to eat around town.

Outdoor Fun And Healthy Activities

Aside from great food, Allen has plenty of amenities to provide fun for the whole family. We love to go on family bike rides and hit the trails, and many can get you between Plano, Allen, and Frisco. This connected trail system is still a work in progress, but there's enough of them that we can go for miles and miles to enjoy a nice, long family stroll or ride.

Residents can also enjoy a variety of parks, such as Wakeboard Park and Celebration Park. The latter features a big kids’ area and a splash pad to cool off on hot days. There's also a splash pad behind the Villages of Fairview that’s another great option. Other green spaces feature a variety of events, like the Wine Fest, Jazz In July at Watters Creek, and family-friendly bands.

Allen also features an aquatic center, the Don Rodenbaugh Natatorium. It features a small indoor water park with a lazy river, kids’ play area, waterslide, and lap lanes. Membership rates are reasonable and, if you're a resident here, you can get an even better deal.

The waterpark also features a fitness center as well, which is a great feature. Of course, you can also find a variety of other workout facilities that include an indoor track, gym equipment, and more. Larger gyms like 24-Hour Fitness and Lifetime Fitness are great Allen amenities to stay healthy and active.

Safe Neighborhoods And Housing Prices

One of the things that really surprised us in Allen is that you hardly ever hear of any crime around town. Of course, I'm sure there's more than what we think. However, several years ago we received postcards in the mail that said we had the seventh-lowest crime rate by FBI crime statistics for cities of our size range. This has proved true; you just don't ever have any trouble with that sort of thing around Allen.

Additionally, the cost of living here has always been fairly reasonable compared to most of the country. As part of the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, we've been one of the lowest—if not the lowest—for many years of the largest 20 metropolitans. While a lot of demand has come up, we've been in the top places to live over and over and over again here in the Allen, Texas area. This has tended to bring up some of our housing prices.

With the huge rise we've had this year last year, the median home price in Allen was about $335,000. This year, I'm afraid to say it's closer to $375,000. This means we get houses in this area that range from about $250,000 up to over a few million dollars.

The Weather

As you can see, there’s plenty of things to love about Allen. However, like any area, there are a few cons. One of the things that are not so great about this area is the weather.

While it’s fantastic in one respect, it can be extremely hot—so much so that wearing shoes is a must when you step outside. While we do tend to have mild winters, we have some pretty long, hot summers. Our summers tend to be about four to five months long with temperatures ranging from about 90 to 100 degrees—and several days that will eclipse 100.

In the wintertime, we get just a few days below freezing, and some years we don’t have it at all. However, this last year we had some of the coldest days on record. It shut down everything, killed the power, and we had all kinds of problems. We're just not used to having that kind of cold weather.

If you love snow, we do get some once in a while—though it will melt the next day. Whenever it snows, the grocery stores will be packed, so beware. It's really not something we're overly used to here since we only get a good snow every three to five years. Even then, it’s usually a light dusting.

Walkability And Transportation

One of the other downfalls of the Allen area would be walkability. We get people coming in from New York and California, and some of these places have a lot more congestion and tighter packed populations. They don't drive much but they walk everywhere, so they ask us about a walkability score. However, it’s not something we think about much here. Allen doesn’t have much public transportation either.

The lack of walkability is true of most of the North Dallas suburbs. This is suburban life with a lot of families—making it great for drive scores. You can get to absolutely everything and there's plenty of parking, unlike in some bigger, more congested cities.

There are, however, only a few places in the suburbs that have a great walk score. So if you're looking for that, some areas of Dallas that are mixed-use developments might fit your needs. Reach out to us and we can direct you to the right place for you. In Allen, you might also want to try the apartments at Watter’s Creek, as they have a great walk score.

Space And Topography

Another thing we don't have an Allen that people coming into the area always ask for is big yards and vast spaces. Unfortunately, Allen doesn't have but a few of them. However, bordering Allen are the cities of Parker, Lucas, and Fairview. Those cities typically have 1-3 acre lots, including horse properties.

With more space, though, comes a higher price tag. You’ll start closer to the $700,000 range, though every once in a while there'll be a house that comes in below that for an older home or a smaller property. However, these properties can reach into the millions. For those of you not from Texas, the first thing you think about is horses and ranch properties—but it’s not like that everywhere.

Another con of living in Allen is that, if you're looking for oceans, mountains, or skiing, it’s not going to happen. We do have some manmade lakes on the corners of the Metroplex, and you're within about a 10-minute drive to Lake Lavon and a 20-minute drive to a few other lakes. If you'd like to have a lake house, we've got a few lakes that are popular vacation destinations within an hour or two away from here. But if you're looking for a lot of water for your watersports, we don't have it. You're not going to see dolphins here.

Come Explore Allen, Texas

We hope this gives you some information about the things that we love about the Allen area. If there is anything you’d like to know that we haven’t covered here, make sure to reach out to us and we’ll be happy to connect. Our real estate team is centered around the North Dallas suburbs of Plano, Allen, Frisco, and McKinney, Texas. So if you're looking to buy, sell, or invest in real estate in this area, please look us up.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel so you never miss an episode of our show, all about North Dallas living. Stay tuned to see what we feature next!

Are you looking to sell your house but are overwhelmed with all the options available? In this video, we’re going to show you how to see all of your options at once with our fast cash offers. We’ll also explain the different ways you can sell your house so you can make the best decision for your situation.

Different Types Of Buyers

Just 15 to 20 years ago, real estate was really simple. If you wanted to sell your house, you had a few different options: you could list it as for sale by owner or you could hire a realtor. In today's world, however, there are many more choices. And even if you decided to use a realtor, sellers have to choose between several hundred different real estate companies with more popping up every day.

To make the process easier, we’re going to look at the different types of buyers for your house.

Investors

The first group we’ll consider is investors. You’ll see signs on the side of the road that say, “We buy houses in any condition.” Those are typically investors looking to buy your house wholesale, not live in it themselves. Rather, they want to buy it to make a profit off of it in one of two ways. They’ll either resell it immediately or clean it up first and sell it.

The only problem for sellers is that investors are looking for wholesale options that they can sell and move quickly. While they can give you all cash and give you some flexibility, they're also going to give you pennies on the dollar for what your home may be worth. You're generally going to be leaving an awful lot of money on the table.

For Sale By Owner

The second option we want to talk about is selling your home for sale by owner. This has always been a popular means of selling your house and, when I first got into the real estate business, it was popular for people to try to figure out how to do it. There were a few online portals that people would use that were not overly popular. People would also use the newspaper as well as Craigslist when the platform was introduced.

Today, other more popular websites have outlets for people to sell their homes themselves. There are, though, still pros and cons to this. On the one side, you have to figure out how you're going to determine the value of your house. Most people are trying to use some of these online portals which are very, very inaccurate. Sometimes you may end up selling your house for considerably less than you want to—or you may overprice it and it could sit on the market for quite some time.

Additionally, when you go to market your house, you're only going to see a certain percentage of the market. You have to figure out how you're going to mass-market that property to get top dollar and figure out the right price tag for it.

iBuyers

The next popular thing is iBuyers. These are internet-based buyers, which are a new twist on an old trick. The old trick is wholesaling—seeing those signs on the road, the billboards, and the “We Buy Houses” in any condition advertising. The new trick is getting large corporations involved, creating bigger business models with more investors.

Investors want to find your house and a wholesale price tag, not market value. While they say market value, that's the same thing as saying I'm going to take my car to a car dealership and sell it to them, knowing full well they're going to do nothing but give it a quick makeover and clean up and put it back on their car lot at a much higher price. Obviously, sometimes that might be the way you want to go with your car. It’s the same thing with your house. In your situation, it may be the easiest way to avoid doing repairs and other work.

However, remember that they're going to give you an offer sight unseen for the house based on what you tell them. They’re then going to come out and inspect your home and after they inspect your house, guess what's going to happen? A price drop. They're going to tell you all the things that are wrong with it, and that they need to reduce the price because they didn't know those things when they gave you the offer.

The second thing that they're going to do is make an offer that sounds really good. If it sounds too good to be true, be careful. There's often a lot of things that are written into an offer. By the time that it goes to the clubs, they will sell you on the idea that you're not going to be paying a realtor commission, it will be a really quick close, and they can give you flexibility.

While some of those things are very true and work very well regarding flexibility and cash flows, they’re also going to leave a lot of money on the table. This is because they're going to turn around and resell your house on the open market to all buyers after they've taken it for you and have enough to pay a realtor—even though they told you you were going to save that money.

Working With A Realtor

The last major way to sell your house is through the traditional means of using a realtor. Whether your home is in absolute fix-up condition and needs an awful lot of work or it's prim and proper and completely decked out, it's always always always a good idea to meet with a high-quality, experienced realtor in your area. You want to find somebody that knows their market inside and out.

A realtor can help advise you on what you would get for your house in its current state and condition—as well as what you would get for it if you were to do a lot of work to it. So before you remodel the kitchen that you put off for years, rebuild the fence that's always bothered you, or just accept a random offer from a phone number that you got from a sign, consult a realtor. You may be leaving a lot of money on the table, and they can help you weed through your options.

Fast Cash Offers

Whether you choose to use an agent or one of those other methods, there is another option. We like to offer a more direct and honest approach to selling your home using Fast Cash Offers.  What we'd like to do is come out to your house and give you a direct honest approach, telling you exactly what the house would sell for it in its current state and condition. We’ll also tell you what it would sell for if you were to do the work and start fixing it up.

So before you go tearing out the walls and remodeling the kitchen or replacing that fence that’s been bothering you, let's determine whether or not those things are going to yield a good return on the investment. In addition to that, we will submit the house to several buyers and bring you their offers. We’ll explain their offers to you, and we can weed through those to decide if they’re the best options for you.

We'll let you know and you'll be able to see it directly based upon what we've already told you your house is worth. If one of those offers seems like the best option, another thing we can do is get investors that will match their offers. They can often offer you a little bit better solution because we can work the purchase side on where you're going to live next, working a smooth transition between closing on your old house and getting you into a new one.

So whether you choose to go on the open market, fix it up and sell it on your own, or sell to one of the iBuyers, we’ll give you all of those options in one place and allow you to weed through all of the junk. We understand all seller situations are different, and that's what have all these programs for you to choose from. So contact us here at The Mickle Team in the North Dallas suburbs. We’re centered around Plano, Allen, Frisco, McKinney, Texas, and anything that borders those. So if you're looking to buy, sell or invest in real estate in our area, we look forward to hearing from you!

Have you ever seen the movie, The Money Pit? Look, maybe you have and maybe you haven't. Anybody who's lived through the 1980s remembers the movie with Tom Hanks from the Money Pit when everything that went wrong in that house they bought.

So today, we're going to talk about the top five things to look out for when buying a house in North Texas.

 Soil

Living in North Texas is very different than living in different places. It gets really hot in here, over 100 degrees at times. It hails. We have expansive soils, and we have a few other things. We just want to make sure that you avoid those pitfalls. Well, if you're looking to move to the North Dallas area and you have never been here, or even Texas, things are very different here! For example, unlike Chicago, we don't really have basements here!

The first thing we want you to look out for, along with that soil, and the fact that we don't have basements is because we have a moving soil in this part of the country. That moving soil creates some different issues with the foundation. So we're always going to want to look out for foundation problems and excessive settlement. We're normally going to have a few cracks here and there in some of the houses in Texas, but we want to make sure that those cracks aren't excessive and going to cause you major problems down the road.

About two years ago, we had a house that we were trying to sell that another agent had been their agent on their purchase side for. When we went to sell the house, that person had no idea that that house had had extensive foundation work done to it previously. Unfortunately, some of that foundation work did not have a warranty and was done in a substandard fashion

When we went to sell that house, it really felt like you were walking through a fun house. The floors were completely un-level. There was massive slopes to it. And when buyers would walk through it, it was a real problem. And being able to sell that house was very difficult. The only buyers that were willing to buy it were investors that wanted to buy it for way undervalue. We want you to avoid that.

Termites

So, the next thing on our list is termites. Termites here in North Texas are actually very, very common. Due to this, we always recommend our clients have a termite inspection and avoid any problems down the road.

Insurance Claims

The third thing that we're going to talk about that you have got to watch out for here in the North Texas area is previous insurance claims. Where the homeowner somehow collected on the claim, but didn't do all the repairs.

That's not good. So as an agent, our job is to make sure that that's taken care of before you close. Otherwise, that could be a lien on you later on.

The most common place that we see this is from hail damage. We'll get hailstones that'll damage the roof. Some people will choose to fix what they think needs to be done and not everything and work things out under the table with the roofers, the gutters, fences, things like that. Anything that's not been repaired is no longer insurable for you on the next claim.

Plumbing

The fourth thing is the plumbing lines. Plumbing lines sound really, really simple, but the older the house, we recommend anytime a house is more than 30 years old, that you have a plumber come in and do an inspection as well as your regular inspector on that home. Either scope or hydrostatically test those lines to make sure that there are no breaks in the plumbing line leaving the house. Those are not covered under a typical homeowners insurance policy. They're no longer covered under most home warranties unless we get extended pipe leak coverage, which we highly recommend you get on any house over 30 years old. And believe it or not, a regular inspector, they do not do that camera scope, so that's something that you have to contact a licensed plumber to do.

For example, about four years ago, we had a client who continually had problems with sewage backing up into their shower in their master bathroom. Later on, we found out that was because there was a break underneath in the sewer line that was never recognized or noticed before. Again, that's because of the expansive soils that we have with older plumbing. Once that was fixed, the problem was solved, but it required them digging out underneath of the home to get that. We would have avoided a $12,000 repair had we just simply inspected the property.

HVAC

The fifth thing is the HVAC system here in Texas. You probably already know, but we get really hot temperatures come the middle of the summertime here. It's not uncommon for us to have a number of days over 100 and up to 105, 106 degrees on occasion. You really don't want to be in your house at 100 degree temperature. One of the problems that we've seen over the years is people get a substandard, just a basic inspection. Your regular inspector is always going to defer on certain things like plumbing, air conditioning, and foundations. We recommend that the air conditioning systems always be double checked. It's a good idea to have a reputable air conditioning technician come out and inspect the property. Or if we see problems with the initial inspection, we can push that back to the sellers and have them pay for it. Getting that inspected is really important. We've had numerous clients over the years who have gotten into a house, everything seemed to work just perfectly, and they argue, "Well, it worked on the day that we sold the house." But, when we had further inspections done, we find out that it's got rusted out coils and it's leaking down. And that system is running on the edge of its life. Last time we checked, it was like $1,800 just to replace the coils, so it's not cheap. A $125 inspection saves you from a $2,000 repair.

So when buying a house in North Texas, it's really important that you know what to avoid and what to look for to find a really good house and avoid living in the money pit.

After all these years of doing real estate, we've seen some crazy stuff. And we're going to look out for you and help you to avoid those problems. So if you're looking to buy, sell, or invest in real estate here in the North Dallas area, in the North Dallas suburbs of Plano, Allen, Frisco, McKinney and anything that borders them, we're here for you.

Again, I'm Angel. And I'm Chris. And we're owners of the Mickle team, a real estate team here in North Texas. Thanks for stopping by!

Chris: Angel, what are you wearing?

Angel: Well, they said when we go out, we need to wear a mask and protection gear. Am I'm wearing a mask.

Chris: Honey, I don't think that's what they meant by wearing a mask and protective gear. They mean a medical-grade mask-

Angel: What?

Chris: ... to protect you from the virus.

Angel: I think they did also say six feet apart, too.

Chris: Yeah, six feet apart, social distancing. I mean-

Angel: You're too close!

Chris: Ahh! Wow, so I think she's starting to get the idea, but she's got a little bit to work on.

Hi, I'm Chris.

Angel: I'm Angel.

Chris: And we're the Mickle team. We're a real estate team here in the North DFW area, serving the North Dallas suburbs of Plano Allen, Frisco, McKinney, and anything that borders them. If you're looking to buy, sell or invest in real estate in this area, look us up.

While Angel's getting ready for her appointment, I just wanted to give you a quick update on what's happening in our world with the COVID world. We're starting to see things open up in the markets; and as a result of that, the housing market's really moving along well.

You guys already know that the interest rates have seen a nice reduction. As a result of that reduction, a lot of people have been buying houses or refinancing their house. We've been seeing buyers in just the $300,000 price range even, average $150 to $170 a month in savings by doing the refinances or by buying now versus just a year ago. That is huge.

The second thing that that's doing is creating a little bit of an inventory gap. We've got a lot more people that are looking to buy right now than people that are looking to sell. That may create a really great opportunity if you're looking to sell at this time or in the near future.

And the third thing I want to note is that we are still using a little bit of technology updates, maintaining a little bit of distancing. As a result of that, there's a few other things that are taking place. We can help you see houses without always having to be in the house and get through a lot of them via video and some of those things first if you want to maintain those distancing standards. It's really going to be up to you.

Then another one is there's no overlapping showings. So if you've got a house you want to see, then you know you really want to get into it, we need to know well enough in advance that we don't have overlapping showings with other agents.

With that said, we're going to go out and meet Angel for her showing now.

Hi. So welcome back. We're getting ready to do a virtual tour. One of the things that we're doing to adjust to the COVID-19 outbreak here and trying to minimize exposure for our clients. Angel's just about to meet a client here at this house. We thought we'd do a quick virtual tour for some others beforehand, because we had done one for them on FaceTime and walked through. So now, we're going to walk through this beautiful property, and I think Angel's just coming up and she's about ready. Angel? Wow! Angel ...

Angel: What?

Chris: This is a bit extreme, baby. I mean, this is over the top, this isn't ...

Angel: What do you mean? I have my mask on, I even got my dish gloves on, and don't you just love my pouch?

Chris: Baby, you're going full respirator here. What all's in this pouch?

Angel: Well, let me show you then. I got the hand sanitizer here. I got mask for my client. And I got the Lysol spray. Come on over. Aaah!

So, you’ve decided to purchase a home, congratulations! 

                            Buying a home is very exciting, but do you know what the closing costs associated with buying a house are? 

Today we are going to talk to you about the closing costs associated with buying a home in the North Texas, Dallas area. Closing costs do vary some from state to state, but we are going to give you a good general idea of the typical closing costs you can expect. We can’t stress enough to make sure you take note of these and ask your agent or lender to give you some rough estimates to factor in your budget before you put an offer on a house. 

The first question we usually get asked is, what is the down payment? Do I have to put down 20% every time?  The first step is to check with your lender to see what loan program best fits your needs. We see as low as 3% down (even 0% with VA or special circumstances) to as high as a full on cash offer! However, buying a house is like any other business transaction, and there are costs associated with buying a new home. It is important to know that these closing costs are in addition to your down payment. Knowing and anticipating this ahead of time is key, and we are going to list them out for you so that you are not surprised at the closing table.

1. Escrow: What is escrow? Escrow is a third party who handles the contract, disperses funds, and keeps everyone honest and legal!  Only until all parties have signed the contract and hand it over to escrow can the contract be changed. The cost of escrow is going to vary based on the price of your home. The higher purchase price of the home, the higher escrow costs are going to be, but it is typically about 1% of the contracted price. 

2. Title Costs: The next fee you are going to look at is title costs. The first and most expensive title cost is the title policy. This usually runs at .7%-1% and is a negotiable expense that is usually paid for by the seller. The only time you should be paying the title policy fee as a buyer is if your realtor isn’t doing his or her job. We always seek to negotiate that the seller should pay the title policy fee!  The rest of the title costs are miscellaneous fees. There is an attorney doc prep fee that runs about $250, and there is a title process fee that runs at about $350 for both the buyer and seller. These fees are non negotiable and will be the same regardless you’re buying a home for $1,000 or $1,000,000. The total of these secondary title costs are going to be usually just under $1,000.

3. Loan Fees: Surprise, surprise, rate isn’t the only consideration to consider with your mortgage broker or lender as they will also have closing costs that will vary from lender to lender. These fees depend a little bit on what type of loan program you’re in as well.  But, in general, there is going to be a loan origination fee, a processing fee, and a doc prep fee that are going to be associated with your loan program and lender. It is important to discuss these different fees upfront when choosing your lender so that you know EXACTLY what you are paying for and that you are not getting taken advantage of. 

4. Pre-Paid Items: Depending on your down payment amount and loan program, your lender may require you to come to closing with some prepaid items. These are items that your lender will have to collect at closing so they can pre-load a new escrow account to pay your property taxes and insurance when they are due. 

5. Homeowners Association Fees: The next important fee to look at is the HOA fees. Not every home is going to be in an HOA, but many of the nicer and newer homes in the North DFW Suburbs will. When you’re in an HOA there is going to be an HOA transfer fee and some other miscellaneous fees that come with it. We are always  going to try to negotiate that the seller pay for the HOA transfer and document fees, but on occasion there may  be some HOA fees that are required to be paid by the buyer. 

6. Option Period: When you go under contract in Texas, you are going to have two checks that we surrender right away. One is the Option Fee, which is a negotiated amount of money, typically ranging from $100-$500, that is surrendered directly to the sellers of the house. That money is our consideration for being able to do our inspections and do diligence to make sure that we want to buy the house. If we do not move forward with the house, that money is for the sellers to keep. If we do move forward with it, this locks down the house for us to do all of our inspections while we ensure the house does not go to someone else! 

 The second check is the Earnest Money Fee that we turn over to the Title Company to start the title work and ownership transfer process.  It  is a negotiated amount that is usually around 1% of the purchase price of the home. The tradition is that in the event that we were to walk away from the home for a reason not delineated in the contract, that percentage would pay for about one months worth of expenses to the homeowner,  in consideration for taking the home off the market. But, as you know, a good realtor is going to work really hard to protect that money for you! When we close, that money will go toward the down payment and other closing costs that you incur at the closing table. 

7. Home Inspections: During that option period, you are going to want to get your home professionally inspected. The initial general  home inspection is usually going to cost between $350-$500 depending on the inspector and options. Then, depending on the circumstances, you may  want additional follow up inspections such as a foundation inspection, electrical inspections, HVAC inspection,etc. in which case those may be additional costs. As with most situations, if we can justify the need, we may be able to negotiate these additional costs to be paid for by the seller. This part of the home buying process is in our opinion extremely necessary to be sure you know what you are buying, but will occur only after you have received an accepted offer for the property. I have heard horror stories of homebuyers discovering expensive defects on a home AFTER they close on it. Don’t let this nightmare come true for you!

Knowing all of these closing costs upfront will allow you to better prepare for the total amount of money you’ll need to be prepared for to buy your new home and you will be fully prepared for the amount of cash you need to bring to the table. It is super important to look at these costs even before getting in the car to look at new homes because we don’t like bad surprises coming up at the closing table that catch you off guard! If you’d like a better idea of what your closing costs will be, please reach out to us and we can help break it down for you.