The Hidden Costs Of Home Buying

The Savvy Synopsis

When preparing to buy a home, it's easy to over look the costs that go into the process. Of course you'll have a down payment, but there are other costs you might be forgetting. Make sure to check out these five hidden costs and include them in your budget. 

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Featured Foundations:

Hidden Costs Of Home Buying

0:38 Inspections

  • Depending on the location of the home, that adds to the inspections you get.
  • Angie recommends a home inspection, a pest/termite inspection, and a radon inspection.
  • If further out in the county, you may look at getting a septic inspection, well inspection, air quality, or even check for settling with a structural inspection.  
  • This will be the time you negotiate for repairs based on what’s found in the inspection.

4:25 Surveys

  • Surveys are different from inspections. The cost depends on the acreage of the house.
  • This will help you find the property line if you want to put up a fence or find encroachments.

5:54 Fees

  • Fees can include closing costs, prorated taxes, an escrow account, HOA fees, lender fees, etc...
  • If obtaining financing, you have to order an appraisal.
  • On average, plan for $5,000-$7,000 for closing costs. 

9:01 Moving Costs

  • Renting a truck and/or hiring movers adds up.
  • Sometimes friends can help, but it’s nice to get professional help with the big stuff.
  • You might have to pay for storage if the timing doesn’t line up.

11:32 Potential Repairs

  • You may want to update the house, whether that’s with a repair or fresh paint.
  • There are things you may want to take care of immediately. 

 

13:24 Neighborhood Spotlight: Tyler Park

  • Located in Fuquay-Varina, off of James Slaughter Road.
  • All the homes have been built in the last five to six years by different builders.
  • Single family homes ranging from 2,200 to 3,600 square feet.
  • Price range $350,000-$400,000.
  • Typically about a quarter of an acre of land and lower maintenance.
  • Just listed: 2008 Temple Hills Way.  

The Mailbag.

16:32 Investment Property

  • Dan is looking to buy a home to rent it out. Where are the best locations for investment properties?
  • Angie says to stay in a lower price bracket, aiming for under $300,000 in Raleigh.
  • A townhome is often a good route to go as those tend to run out.
  • Try to be in areas where there are lots of shopping, restaurants, and universities.  

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The Host:

Angie Cole - Contact - Call: 919-538-6477

Show Transcription:

PODCAST 042 - HIDDEN COSTS - ANGIE COLE.mp3 | Convert audio-to-text with the best AI technology by Sonix.ai

It's time for The Savvy Realtor Podcast. I'm Walter Storholt alongside Angie Cole the owner and broker in charge of A Cole Realty serving you throughout the Triangle teaching you about the ins and outs when it comes to buying or selling a home. You can find the team online by going to A Cole Realty dot com that's A C-O-L-E Realty dot com or by calling 9 1 9 5 7 8 3 1 2 8 that's 9 1 9 5 7 8 3 1 2 8. And now it's time for one of the top realtors in the Triangle. Angie Cole and The Savvy Realtor Podcast... Angie, let's spend some time talking about the hidden costs of buying and selling you know when preparing to buy a home it's easy to kind of overlook some of the expenses that go into the process. Sure

We have the obvious things like downpayment and you know the loan that you're going to get but there are other costs that you are going to want make sure you don't overlook as well. So let's spend some time discussing these hidden costs. What about the various inspections that we might encounter during a home purchase.

Yeah for sure. You know depending on the location of the home that can actually add to the amount of inspections that we would suggest that you get. So first of all we always highly suggest that our buyers they get a home inspection a pest termite and a rate on inspection. It's up to them to decide if they want to get these services because of course they do cost money. Right. They're not free. But we always highly advise that you do. And then if you are maybe a little bit further out you're in the county more than likely you're on a septic so a septic inspection will be very important. A Well inspection. There's also air quality you know maybe there's been some settling so maybe you want to get a structural engineer out there to help them just do some further research maybe you know the inspector stated that you know oh I'm a little bit concerned about this age back maybe when you get an additional H back Inspector. So there are a lot of inspections that come along with buying a home pools pool for inspection. I mean I feel like it's endless. As far as the type of inspections are going to go right actions. But I would say the most common definitely are home inspection your pest termite. That's kind of one and the same. And then a rate on inspection. But it's important that you do get these done during your due diligence period because that's a time that you as a buyer you should be doing your investigations and you want to make sure that you're well aware of the condition of the home that you are about to purchase. Also that's a time that you could potentially negotiate repairs as well. So yeah that's definitely you know a cost that you will incur. I would say on average you know most buyers they pay around 500 to 750 and inspections. But once again anytime you start adding septic well pool that number can definitely go up.

Yeah I know just from personal experience. Your home inspection is going to be relatively robust from a cost standpoint is going to be a big portion of that figure that you threw out just because it covers the entire home your past and your radon tend to be pretty minimal. There's

A massive amount maybe you know 75 ninety five dollars or so. Yeah. Structural a little bit more trash can be a few hundred radon maybe 150. That's kind of you know minimal basic pool is actually pretty inexpensive. Yeah there's a pool inspection. Yeah I don't know the exact Alabama's say went round to maybe hundred feet two hundred for that. Yeah it depends on the level of inspection I just can't remember.

And I also just remember when it comes to like a home inspection it does depend on the size of the home. Yeah and also the age you know. So of course a 10000 square foot home would be a lot more expensive versus a twelve hundred square foot home true. Right. Good point. So that can range as well.

Is there any complications here from like let's say you wanted to get all these inspections done. Sure. Well you don't own the house yet. Yeah. The other person owns the house and you're now ordering all these inspections and basically like forcing that homeowner to probably leave or be inconvenienced by all these we coming over. Has there ever been any tension from that standpoint.

Oh yeah. But the contract does read that you need to give the buyer the option and availability to do the inspections you know within reason.

So you know you can't be stonewalled by a home seller and you know they it's in the contract they have to make it happen for.

Yes. Yes and if they don't then the seller is in breach of contract at that point yesterday. They know the seller does not have to leave their home. You know even though we highly advise it is just best but you know yes they must make a way for the buyers to come through and do their inspections surveys would be on this list of hidden expenses as well.

I know this is different than inspections. This would just be a survey kind of their own thing. I know our first home we got a survey but we skipped it on our second home.

Yeah I would say I'm seeing that about 50/50. You know it it's one of those things I tend to find that people more than likely will get if survey if they know they're putting in a fence. If in the near future because most of the H.R. ways if your neighborhood is governed by age away it's a requirement to submit the survey show exactly you know the drawing where the fence will be placed the style. Yes. So a survey you know once again it depends on acreage. But as far as the costs there. That is a few hundred dollars. Again you know a survey can also be very important too though just to make sure there's no type of encroachments or easements it's called an encroachment would be like maybe your neighbor has something coming into your yard. You want to be well aware of you know your home your lot. Yeah. That is something that is important during due diligence as well should you decide to get a survey because if you find that there's encroachments the seller actually they need to fix that. We need to be in agreement because they're not selling a property that's clear as far as the title goes because there is an approach meant on it. Interesting. Sometimes it's no big deal. But yes surveys another thing that you might get and that costs a few hundred dollars.

Yeah they are useful though especially if you've got a lot of trees that are near the property line you want to know which ones are yours which ones are on the other side so yeah. Exactly. All good things. What about fees those you know everything in life has fees these days. How much should I start piling up on a closing document.

Yeah. So I mean there's some fees that I can think of. You know for example if you're obtaining financing it's a requirement for the lender to order an appraisal. If it's a cash deal it's up to the buyer whether or not they would like to order that but an appraisal you know round 450 or so you have your title services on the buy side the buyer typically is the one in North Carolina that would pick the closing attorney and then they pay the higher Title Services as far as for the attorney. You know on average I'd say around a thousand dollars for the attorney. Then we'll need to get title insurance to protect you so you know those feeds can start to add up. I know we're gonna go through and talk a lot more in regards to other fees that are part of kind of like closing. Yeah go ahead. Go ahead. They're there. Yeah yeah. I mean also you'll find a raft together. Yeah. You have your closing costs in general so I mean there's other things as a buyer like you have your pro-rated taxes you have taxes that you have to make sure that the tax bills already been paid for the year. You need a credit back the seller you know also if you are doing an escrow account which most buyers do when they're obtaining financing you know we typically see normally your lender's going to collect a couple of months of taxes of some perforations there also homeowner's insurance they need a buffer right now.

So they'll go ahead. They'll add you know several months in for homeowner's insurance so that all is kind of included in what's called your escrow account maybe HVAD some HCA companies they have an initial contribution you know some make you go ahead pay through the year so that could be in there. Also lender fees of course you know in order for a lender to make an income. They must get paid somewhere. Right. So they charge those fees to the buyer so there might be what's called points you know. So there's also typical lender fees. On average for closing costs you know we say that it's about 3 percent of the purchase price but on the other hand you know if you're buying a million dollar home it's not going to be thirty thousand dollars. OK. So we typically say on average you know look anywhere from about five to seven thousand dollars for all of the closing costs and fees together that we just mentioned and talked about even even probably the inspections and into that figure as well. You know inspections I it could be a little bit above and beyond to be honest with you. It really can vary but that's where if you're obtaining financing your lender comes into place your lender should be able to provide to you a good faith estimate which will cover all of these items. The only unknown items once again will be inspections but with the inspections we can give you an estimate before we order those for you.

We're talking with Angie Cole of Echo realty here in the Triangle this is the savvy real tour radio show. Thanks for taking some time out to join us today talking about some of those hidden costs of buying and selling and by hidden costs we're not saying like Oh you've got to read the fine print. We're just trying to now bring your attention to the fact that if you're looking at purchase prices of homes well you need to factor in a little bit more for some of these.

It's not just the sales price. It's not just a down payment. You're right. You have you know other fees associated with buying a home.

All of these things are above board but they might be hidden from your first impression sort of pricing that you've got little things. Well they seem a little but they can pile up as well. General moving costs. Oh yeah right. I mean renting that truck and if you need to move into storage for a little while.

Yeah. I mean just you know and getting movers alone. I mean I know that you know when we were moving we I had a home a husband had a home we sold both we moved into a new home. You know it ran a couple thousand dollars. I mean to get it professionally done is not cheap and then and that didn't even include if you had help with packing up boxes you know I'll give a great tip for movers.

I know you better say work with friends pizza and beer. Oh yeah that works too. But no just hired movers for the big things. Yeah yeah. Do all the little things you set. Sure. So it's actually pretty affordable. Yeah. So it's well worth the cost is it saves your energy from moving this humongous item. Yep. It really save your back and your energy on some of those things. Yes.

Because just moving all the little stuff and organizing clothes and stuff to you know just throw them in the back yard. I like mine just on the hangers I lame in the back of my car and I put it back up. But if you're Golda. Right. Well.

But especially if you are moving the same day you close. Yeah. That's a stressful day. You're gonna be mentally exhausted try and take some of that workload off. I agree with you. I agree. For a long time I was like oh I'm going to move myself. I'm not going to. You know I'd never pay somebody to do it for me. You know I'm going to move everything but I guess maybe with age 2 you had a few years on your guy. I've done that a couple times in my life.

You can do it. You can do it now. Yeah. BEYDOUN that's definitely you know costs that we need to be thinking about furniture.

You might be needing to fill a bigger space of your upgrading to your home. Now you had a lot more furniture to flat.

Yeah. You know that's one of the things I say do it slowly. You know I guess I just saw time hop on my Facebook that happy anniversary tells we've been in our home before year Oh nice. Yeah. As of this morning. But you know it's one of those things when you move into your home your home does. Oh and I was going to say that because my home is still not perfect. I've been there for four years. I still do not have draperies in my home. Right. So don't feel that when you move into your home you must get it completely fully staged perfect as far as all the furnishings because it can take some time and some money to do that definitely can.

I know that's one thing we overlooked moving into our new home recently was just we put all our furniture from the old house in and then you're kind of like oh I don't really work here. Right. It doesn't have the right size or angles everything is off from the old house. So yeah that was one thing that we ran into and then you start going furniture shopping and it becomes exciting new stuff dangerous exciting but dangerous dangerous. They gotta be careful there. Last but not least potential repairs maybe upgrades that you need to make to the home. Those are kind of obvious but you know you got thing. You know you need new paint or you need this that. Got to take into account those costs too.

Sure. You know remember especially for buying a resale home it's uneven though homes being sold as is always per the contract is typically understood that the sellers will be negotiable and reasonable when it comes to repairs. But I bet you when you present to them the list of inspection items they are not going to agree to everything. I mean it just doesn't happen that way. So there might be things above and beyond that were on the inspection report that you might want to go ahead and have taken care of immediately and then yeah just making the home your own. Right. You know as far as like All right we have laminate. We want to add Grandma. You know we want to paint you know the area because it all is just kind of very vanilla. So those items they can add up you know. Once again you know a lot of those things they don't have to be done immediately but it's something to think about because it will cost you money to do any type of upgrades or repairs.

A lot of the things that we've just talked about are covered in the home buying guide that Angie Cole and her team have put together for you if you want to get that home buying guide you can download it on your smartphone. Just text the word contract to the number 5 5 5 8 8 8. Again text the word contract to the number 555 8 8 8.

This guide sort of shows you the you know a dizzy start to finish process of buying a home and kind of walks you through the different steps and gives you all of these kinds of things to be thinking about when you go through that process. It's nice to have on hand and start your buying process. So just text the word contract to the number 5 5 5 8 8 8.

This is the savvy realtor we are going to answer some more of your questions coming up on today's program. Dan

Let's shine a little light on some of the Triangle's best areas right here on the neighborhood spotlight neighborhood spotlight.

On the way here on the sandy real tour Walter store alongside Angie COLE She's the owner and broker in charge of a Cole realty serving you throughout the Triangle not only in Raleigh but all the surrounding communities as well if you wanna learn more about the twenty nine day homes sold guarantee echo realty will sell your home in 29 days or laughs or they'll sell it for free.

Find out all the details by calling Angie at 9 1 9 5 3 8 64 77. That's 9 1 9 5 3 8 6 4 7 7. The neighborhood spotlight is where we feature a great area here in the Triangle tell you all the cool details what it might be like to live there or if you're looking to sell in this particular area. What the market looks like. Angie what's this week's spotlighted neighborhood.

So we're headed over to a few. So right off of James slaughter Road is a neighborhood called Tyler Park. Taylor Park is a fairly newer neighborhood. All the homes have been built in the last five to six years. It's a fairly new neighborhood and they were built by different builders so we add h h. Hunt who was building the air we had savvy homes cabinets and Kate's so different mix of builders but they all kind of build really similar products. So all the homes in this neighborhood are single family homes. They range anywhere from about 20 200 square foot up to right over thirty six hundred square feet. Right now they're selling in the mid three hundreds up to the kind of upper three hundreds like I mentioned all single family homes. And we had very low H.R. ways which I know is important to a lot of people the lot sizes are typically about a quarter of an acre so tiny but not huge. So lower maintenance which is wonderful. So once again neighborhood spotlight is Tyler park in a few way Verena. We actually just listed a home for sale in that neighborhood at 2008 Temple Hills way and feet away. So wonderful neighborhood. It's really pretty when you're driving through and overall you know exterior facades of these homes. They're really eye catching as well.

Yeah I'd say the lots feel bigger. They deal they really do just just from like zooming through with Google and having been down that area before. You see only a quarter acre but for some reason I think that's they're all set off the road a little more it's there.

All of them are a lot deeper versus wider so maybe your neighbors are a tad bit closer on the sides but you have a good sized backyards and front yards which I think create that feel of being a little bit larger a lot.

Yeah it doesn't fit it doesn't have that postage stamp. Yeah. You know it does production feel to it does not at all. There's still some spacing there.

So pretty neighborhood if you wanna learn more about this neighborhood again reach out to Angie Cole and the eco Realty team you go online to a call realty dot com. That's a COLB real teacup or call or text Angie at 9 1 9 5 3 8 64 77 that's 9 1 9 5 3 8 6 4 7 7.

We're coming up on today's show.

This is the real. It's time for the mailbag. We want to hear from you

Dan says I'm looking to buy a home condo apartment etc.. Sounds like Dan has his options open.

For the purposes of renting it out where are the best places in the area to get investment properties. I'm looking for steady income and a return on investment.

Yeah great question Dan. I typically advise our investors to go the route of staying in a lower price bracket right. So definitely in the Raleigh area stay in under a 300000 price point just because our average price point right now is around 315 to 320 in our market. A lot of times a townhome is a good route to go and I say that just because once again there on the lower end. So they typically tend to rent out a little bit better. Yeah it's always tough if you had this you know a large time a 500 thousand dollar home that's 4000 square foot the zip line. It's not a big market for all renters. Right. Yeah. Because of course you know then the lease amount would need to you know then be higher in order to pay for the mortgage or for just to to make sense. Also trying to be in areas where there is either a lot of like shopping restaurants universities being close to the schools is smart you know. But being in more of a high traffic area typically those type of homes will lease out better because that's where most tenants want to be. They want to be in the mix of things. Typically tenants they're not trying to be way way far out with all this land. That's just not the typical investment property so try to stay in a lower price bracket. A lot of times townhomes like I mentioned they tend to run out really well and then try to be you know in the mix of where there's a lot of development a lot of action restaurants shopping close to the universities that would be a smart way to go about you know investment properties.

You've been listening to the savvy real tour podcast. I'm Walter store Holt alongside Angie Cole. She's the owner and broker in charge of ACO realty here in the Triangle and if you have questions for Angie we invite you to go online to a cold Realty dot com. Listen to past podcast episodes on the Web site read the blog and all the great information including the option to find a home right there on the website. That's a cool realty dot com and you can also call ante with your questions. 9 1 9 5 7 8 31 28.

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