The Rand Buyer Orientation Guide

This Buyer Orientation Guide is our starting point for the delivery of services to you throughout the process. You can review these guides throughout every stage of the purchasing process, from your initial consultation to your final closing. We’ve designed these Orientation Guides to help deliver a great service experience to you, by helping you stay informed, engaged, and proactive throughout the transaction.

The Orientation Guides will have three purposes:

First, to fully inform you about what you can expect about each stage of the transaction.

Second, to let you know what your agent and Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty are doing to help you find the right home.

Third, to also let you know what you can do at each stage so that you are fully prepared for what is happening and what lies ahead.

The Advantages of Working with a Buyer’s Agent

You’ll have your initial consultation with your real estate agent, who will familiarize you with the sales process, introduce you to our service approach, and determine your needs, goals, and concerns in buying your new home. In the Guide, you’ll learn about how to prepare for that meeting, how to assemble the rest of your home […]
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What Are You Looking For?

Your first consultation with your buyer agent is an important step in setting the right course for the rest of your home buying experience. It’s a great opportunity to share with the agent your hopes, wants, and desires about the process, and to ensure that your agent knows exactly how to best service your needs. […]
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Assembling Your Team

Buying a home requires more than just the services of a great real estate agent. You are going to need a team of real estate specialists to help you with your financing, legal, and insurance needs. A great team can make a big difference in your real estate transactional experience, so it’s important to start […]
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Getting Pre-Qualified

Getting a mortgage will be the most difficult part of your home buying process, but you can have a better experience if you get prepared and start working with your loan officer right from the beginning. The hardest part about buying a home is getting a mortgage. For the most part, you will actually enjoy […]
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Getting Started with RandRealty.com

The first step in your home search process is setting yourself up on RandRealty.com, the premier real estate website in our region. In this section, you’ll find out about all the features on the site and learn how to register so that you can get email alerts for your saved searches and properties. The Rand […]
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Ten Principles for Starting Your Home Search

Searching for a home can be a fun experience. When you’re thinking of buying a home, every neighborhood is one big department store filled with stuff that you might want to buy. And most people like to go look at homes – indeed, any real estate agent can tell you that her open houses are often […]
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The Showing Process

The fun part of the home buying experience is going out on showings. You’ll go on dozens of showings during your home search, so this section sets out everything you need to know about the showing process. The foundation of the home search process is the property “showing,” which is an appointment set by your […]
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Preparing, Pricing, and Presenting an Offer

Presenting offers is part art, part science. The science part is the analysis you and your agent will do to examine recent comparable sales, the over market conditions, and the perceived attitudes of the seller to determine the correct offering price. The art is how you present it, and whether you give yourself the best […]
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Ten Tips for Negotiating Offers

A good negotiation strategy can save you thousands of dollars in your home purchase. Although buyers and sellers need to work together in good faith, it’s always better of you’re in control of the terms of your negotiation. Here are some tips on how to take a strong negotiating stance. Contrary to popular belief, negotiation […]
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The Transactional Process – Buyers Perspective

Your agent will guide you from your initial offer through your final closing, managing your transactional process. In the Guide, you’ll learn about all the different parts of the transaction, and how to avoid delays that would keep you from closing on time. You’ll also get advice about what to expect in your closing, and how […]
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Dealing with Home Inspection Problems

The home inspection takes place after you have an accepted offer, but before you sign contracts. Most likely, the inspection will turn up some issues, since inspections always do. If the inspection turns up serious issues, we recommend you have your attorney resolve any problems in the contract of sale. After you have an accepted […]
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What to Expect in Your Real Estate Contract

If you haven’t hired your real estate attorney, you’ll need to do so once you have an accepted offer. Your attorney will review a draft of the real estate contract prepared by the seller’s attorney, negotiate legal terms, and guide you through to the closing. Now it’s time to hire an attorney to help you […]
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Understanding the Closing

The real estate closing can be confusing, but mostly it can be boring. The attorneys do all the work, and you will mostly sit around making small talk between long bouts of signing big documents. The seller has even less to do, so you might not even see the seller for most of the closing. […]
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Making Your Move

For most of us, moving is an unusual experience that can be stressful and difficult. It doesn’t need to be that way. Planning ahead, getting solid estimates, and engaging with your movers can give you a feeling of control over your move and provide you with a much better experience. For most people, moving is […]
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