I would suggest talking to the neighbors too, before you move in. The more time you have to look around for awhile, the better off you usually are. Some states have disclosure laws that require things like water leakage, floods, major accidents and crimes to be disclosed by the real estate agent, but not all states do. Same with the title search; some states don't require past messes to be resolved as to who actually *does* have title to the property, and it can lead to some very strange lawsuits.
Also, the agent is not your friend. They are the seller's friend. You may find it worthwhile to get your own broker, it avoids conflict of interest issues. I'm not entirely sure of the details on things like interest rate offers vs. points in where you go to do the financing. I would not take the word of the seller's agent, for instance, as to how to handle all that. You may want to spend some time poking round on the money website Motley Fool for their take on the money involved in buying real estate. I found them helpful on cars--it helped me pick up enough o the language to have some idea what we were dealing with. What they say doesn't always apply in any given case, and it is a viewpoint, not a purely impartial one. There's a lot of useful secondary links in most of Motley's webpages. http://www.fool.com/homecenter/find/find.htm
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The more time you have to look around for awhile, the better off you usually are.
Some states have disclosure laws that require things like water leakage, floods, major accidents and crimes to be disclosed by the real estate agent, but not all states do. Same with the title search; some states don't require past messes to be resolved as to who actually *does* have title to the property, and it can lead to some very strange lawsuits.
Also, the agent is not your friend. They are the seller's friend. You may find it worthwhile to get your own broker, it avoids conflict of interest issues. I'm not entirely sure of the details on things like interest rate offers vs. points in where you go to do the financing.
I would not take the word of the seller's agent, for instance, as to how to handle all that.
You may want to spend some time poking round on the money website Motley Fool for their take on the money involved in buying real estate. I found them helpful on cars--it helped me pick up enough o the language to have some idea what we were dealing with. What they say doesn't always apply in any given case, and it is a viewpoint, not a purely impartial one.
There's a lot of useful secondary links in most of Motley's webpages.
http://www.fool.com/homecenter/find/find.htm