How to Build Your Home Buying Dream Team

I had the pleasure of speaking with Sofia Travayiakis, a lender and branch manager with Mortgage Network, on Monday, November 1 during our first ever Instagram Live.?

We will be conducting these Buyer Q&A IG Lives every Monday in November at 11 am. Our purpose during these sessions is to illuminate various aspects of the home buying process, share helpful tips and market news, and answer viewer questions in real time.?

This week we talked about building your Dream Team— the three professionals you will be working with during the purchase of your new home. These include your:?

• Realtor
• Lender
• Attorney?

It can be difficult to know who to choose to represent you in each aspect, so Sofia and I discuss what to look for in each, how to reach out to them, and why each professional has an essential role in the home buying process.?

Research Early?

It’s important to have your team of professionals ready before you even start looking for a house. The current real estate market is so fast-paced, and offers to purchase homes are regularly coming in over-asking, so speed is of the essence. Getting all your ducks in a row ahead of time is essential to your success.

In my experience as a Realtor, having pre-approvals ready, one for each house you’re seriously looking at and are going to see over a weekend, is a smart idea. Houses have been going so quickly that many listing agents create tight offer deadlines after an open house. Sometimes there isn’t enough time to contact your lender after the fact, and to make a deadline, you need to have that pre-approval ready and on-hand to make a lightning speed offer.?

Even if you're not a first time homebuyer and have gone through the process before, it’s important to remember that the market has changed within even the last two years. In the past, you could see a house over the weekend and perhaps spend a day mulling it over or even going to preview it twice. But in this market, it is imperative to work faster than that.?

What to Look For in Your Team

Use the checklists below to guide you through what to look for in each professional.?

What to Look for in a Realtor

Sofia asked if it’s important to work with a Realtor from the town in which you are searching, and in my opinion, this can be important if you are tightly focused on a single town. For instance, some buyers already know which school system they want. In these cases, it can be beneficial to work with a Realtor who is familiar with, or even lives in, the town you want. They will have knowledge of different neighborhoods—however, keep in mind that in a seller’s market such as this, there are only a handful of homes for sale in any town and sometimes they aren’t in your preferred neighborhood.?

If your search includes a broader area, like “anything along I-495” or “within 40 minutes driving distance to my office” or “within Norfolk county”, you can approach finding a Realtor based on their professional manner rather than on where their office is based.?

Region-Specific rather than Hyper Local?

With everything being done through MLS (Multiple Listing Service) and online, most agents basically have access to the same inventory (unless their office has some off-market listings, which is rare but not unheard of). Therefore it becomes more important to choose a Realtor based on how they work and how you connect, as long as they are located within the broader region of your search area, like south shore, north shore, metro west, or beyond. Also, the Cape & the Islands have their own listing service outside of MLS, so they are region-specific as well.?

Interview the Realtor and ask them about the home buying process. Ask them questions about the timeline. Ask them what their main mode of communication is (are they a big emailer, when you prefer phone calls?) Speaking of phonecalls, make sure they answer their phone and call you back promptly. Do they seem qualified, knowledgeable, and thorough? Do they have good reviews? Do you get the impression that working with them will make the transaction smooth and stress-free?

Your Realtor Checklist

• Look for someone region specific, unless you’re focused on a specific town
• Make sure they are promptly responsive to your outreach and are good communicators
• Ensure they are knowledgeable about the timeline and process of the transaction by asking them to walk you through it
• Ask if they have references to other professionals, like home inspectors. Your Realtor can even assist in finding your lender and attorney
• Ask them to explain their specific working process so you know how they work and how they conduct business
• Ask them if they provide free staging and professional photography services
• Make sure you feel comfortable working with them, because you will spend months together, so this is about having a good working relationship.

What to look for in a Real Estate Attorney

• Make sure they are not charging hourly—usually in a real estate transaction, there is a fee rather than an hourly rate
• Ask them their fees up front
• Find a local attorney
• Make sure they are available to work evenings and weekends— the P&S signing deadlines are usually in the evening, it is not uncommon for the lawyers for both parties to go back and forth right up until deadline.
• Make sure they specialize in real estate law and are familiar with reading Purchase & Sales agreements and with the real estate transaction process.
• Ensure they have good communication skills and are responsive.

What to Look for in a Mortgage Lender

• Find a local lender who underwrites and processes their loans locally. This ensures speed of processing (Mortgage Network can sometimes issue a loan in 30 days, half the industry standard).
• Ask which appraisers they use. Local appraisers know the area better and can better appraise the home.?
• Ask questions about loan programs that are available to you via this lender. This can be dependent on state, income, and first time buyer status. Sometimes different companies have different loan programs depending on whether it’s a mortgage broker, a mortgage company, or a bank.?
• Make sure they can be reached and can provide pre-approvals fast and on evenings or weekends if necessary.
• Ensure they have good communication skills and are responsive.

A note about Sofia Travayiakis and Mortgage Network

Mortgage Network is a mortgage company, not a broker, so they have multiple loan products to offer, and they process and underwrite loans locally in Massachusetts. This gives them more control over the loan. Sofia is licenced in MA, NH, RI, ME with offices in West Roxbury and downtown Boston.?

“Now most of the time the seller’s agent will call me and ask me, did you really talk to these people? Have you seen their income? Have you seen their assets? That’s another reason you want to talk to somebody local, because if [a realtor] calls them, they’re going to answer the phone, and they’re going to feel more confident about accepting your offer over somebody else’s.”

You definitely don’t want to work with a company where when you call them you’re talking to a different person every time, and where it takes forever for someone to get back to you.?

If you have any questions about this topic or about the home buying process in general, reach out to us any time for free consultations. You can reach Evie Sidiropoulos with Berkshire Hathaway Page Realty via email at [email protected] or by phone at (781) 439-4941 or on Instagram @eviebostonrealtor. You can reach Sofia Travayiakis, branch manager of Mortgage Network, via email at [email protected] or by phone at (617) 686-1873 or on Instagram @sofiamortgage.

Both Evie and Sofia service West Roxbury, MA and the surrounding areas in and around Boston.?