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What does a real estate agent actually do?

by AJ Castillo


What does a real estate agent actually do?

What does a real estate agent actually do?   Being a real estate agent requires you to employ a significant number of skills to complete a variety of different tasks on a daily basis. Trying to put in one or two sentences what an agent does each day is virtually impossible to do. It would be like trying to tell you what a chef does — “cooks food” — or what a nurse does — “takes care of patients”. There’s a lot more that goes into what...

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What is your debt to income ratio...why should you care?

by AJ Castillo


What is your debt to income ratio...why should you care?

What is your debt to income ratio...why should you care? Any time you have more income and less debt, you’re in good shape in life. That said, there is an ideal ratio between your debt and income in order to qualify for a good mortgage. When your debt to income ratio is on the high side, you run the risk of not getting a good loan (or not getting a loan at all) if your income were to take a hit right before or during the loan funding process. Conversely, having no debt can work...

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What happens when you overprice your home?

by AJ Castillo


What happens when you overprice your home?

What happens when you overprice your home? When the real estate market favors sellers, it’s almost like there’s a feeding frenzy among buyers trying to secure listings that seem to get snapped up within hours of being put on the market. Such demand drives the prices of homes up rapidly, which only feeds into the perception that the good times will last forever. Unfortunately, trees don’t grow to the sky and there will always be a top of the market. What this means is...

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Why Get Pre-approved? Structuring Your Offer to Get the Best Deal

by AJ Castillo


Why Get Pre-approved? Structuring Your Offer to Get the Best Deal

Why Get Pre-approved? Structuring Your Offer to Get the Best Deal Buying a home is a dream come true, but the process of getting an offer prepared and accepted can be a nightmare if you don’t know what you’re doing. There are over 88 variables that need to be managed properly when buying a home and mishandling just one of them could cost you tens of thousands of dollars in unnecessary expenses. Making a home purchase is expensive enough that you don’t need to part ways...

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Why You Should Have A Home Inspection Before You List

by AJ Castillo


Why You Should Have A Home Inspection Before You List

Why You Should Have A Home Inspection Before You List One of the largest home sale killers is the home inspection. Nearly one-third of all terminated real estate contracts fall apart because of the inspection results. Inspections also ranked as the number three cause of delayed settlements, accounting for 13 percent. For some reason - and I’ll never get it - a home inspection that comes back with anything less than a perfect report strikes fear into the hearts of buyer agents and...

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Your home is under contract, what’s next?

by AJ Castillo


Your home is under contract, what’s next?

Your home is under contract, what’s next? Great news, you’ve put your dream home under contract and you’re excited to move in one day soon. That said, there’s a lot that has to happen before you can take occupancy: home inspection, appraisal, financing paperwork, contingencies and other requirements necessary to close. Here’s what you can expect to happen over the coming weeks.   Due Diligence   Now that the home is yours to negotiate...

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What will be your payment on your new home?

by AJ Castillo


What will be your payment on your new home?

What will be your payment on your new home? Buying a new home can be overwhelming. Between understanding the financial aspects of your loan and all the paperwork required to buy your home, things can get a little crazy. One of the biggest parts of getting a new home is figuring out the terms and conditions of your mortgage. Two of the biggest areas that impact your loan are your credit and your down payment. In this post, we’ll cover both and also explain how to determine the...

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10 questions you must ask an agent before you list your home

by AJ Castillo


10 questions you must ask an agent before you list your home

10 questions you must ask an agent before you list your home Currently, there are over 1.61 million Realtors in the United States alone. The number of people that have joined the real estate sales force over the last 10 years is more than a half a million.. No two agents are the same and less than 10% of the total number of Realtors to 90% of the business. In fact, the average agent has sold roughly 4.2 homes for more than five years now. In addition to that, not all agents are created equally....

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How to beat other buyers to hot, new listings (Before they even know about them)

by AJ Castillo


How to beat other buyers to hot, new listings (Before they even know about them)

How to beat other buyers to hot, new listings (Before they even know about them) Buyers want three things when they’re making a purchase: Selection: Have the largest number of options from which to choose Price: Get a smoking hot deal on what I want to buy Ease of doing business: Don’t make it hard for me to buy it It doesn’t matter if they’re buying shoes, a toaster or a house, all three of them matter and they usually matter in that order. And when...

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When is the Best Season of the Year to Buy to get the Best Deal

by AJ Castillo


When is the Best Season of the Year to Buy to get the Best Deal

When is the Best Season of the Year to Buy to get the Best Deal The housing market here in the United States has been moving at a blistering pace for a while now. On the whole, home prices increased more than 33% from February 2020 to June 2022. What’s even better news is that It’s expected that the housing market will continue to climb in the future — albeit a little more slowly now — due to the changes that were made in the lending market coming out of the mortgage...

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