The very first thing you need to know about buying a home

A question that comes up almost daily is "How do I buy a home?"

Some folks will spend months searching for the "perfect" home, sizing up neighborhoods, locating the best schools, and well...wasting their time. Why would I consider all of these things - which are all part of the process of finding a home - to be a waste of time?

Money. The dream is there, but they haven't taken the very first step in the home-buying process. They haven't applied for a mortgage. Instead they are spinning their wheels looking for the perfect home - which by the way, doesn't exist. But more on that in a minute. Many times those wanting to buy a home are prodded on by well-meaning relatives and friends - who, many times - have incorrect information on how to go about buying a home.

Whether you buy or build your home, somewhere after moving in you'll realize that the home is missing something. It could be that you forgot to have the cable guy install more than one jack in each room. Or building your home too close to a property line, so that you can't install that swimming pool you always dreamed of having off the back porch. Or even that you dreamed of being prepared for power outages but forgot to install a Generac generator when the house was being built.

(That last item is from personal experience. It was talked about and researched and talked about some more. Everything lead to installing a natural gas Generac generator to protect us from those times that the electricity would fail and leave us to play dominoes by candlelight. And all of that research and talk were forgotten in the whirlwind of decisions that come about when you're having a home built.)

But I digress...the very first thing anyone considering buying or building a home should do is take care of where the money will come from. And how much.

You need to know that when you put in an offer to purchase a home - your perfect home - that you at least have a chance of getting it. And it must be in your price range.

This is a fairly straightforward process. You would approach your bank for a mortgage, or get some suggestions from a REALTOR, who works with several lenders all the time.

You apply for a mortgage. The lender will need several bits of information from and about you, such as: where you work, how long have you worked there, how much you earn, what bills you have, your credit score and others.

After the lender enters all this data into their system, they can then tell you two things. One, whether they can lend you the money or not. And two, how much money they can lend you.

The best lenders will also explain to you what you may need to do, if they can't lend to you today. They will outline the steps you need to take, so that in six months to a year, you'll be able to finally get that mortgage and your new home.

If your lender says anything that includes the word "qualified" - tell them you want to be approved, not just qualified. Qualified just means they think they know something about you. But you haven't actually been approved for a mortgage. (Getting approved requires you to provide documentation such as: pay stubs, tax returns, etc. The lender fully checks you out and approves you for a mortgage.)

When you're approved, the lender tells you for how much and sends you out into the world to find your home. In some cases, you can even lock in your interest rate. When you're just qualified, you're sent out and told that once you find something...give us a call. And we'll see if we can get you approved.

So remember...get fully approved for a mortgage, and then go find a REALTOR to help you find your "perfect" home, well almost perfect.

:)

From Green REsource Council article: REALTOR® Buys First Ever Chevy Volt

From the Green REsource Council article, written by Elyse Umlauf-Garneau, 01.24.2011:  REALTOR® Buys First Ever Chevy Volt

The owner of the first Chevrolet Volt is Jeff Kaffee, a real estate practitioner. Kaffee...got his car, a plug-in hybrid, in December 2010. Just this month, the Volt was named the North American Car of the Year at the Detroit Auto Show.

Electric Vehicles Coming On Strong in Oregon

Here's some news from an article I read in Inc. Magazine the other day ( http://bit.ly/i5ECoZ  ) about electric vehicles or EV's.

It appears that Portland Oregon of all places, has become somewhat of a mecca for all vehicles electrical. A quote from the article, "Portland has had some of the earliest, most enthusiastic leadership around electric vehicles," says Chelsea Sexton, an alternative-fuel expert. "And the industry tends to align with where the market is."

Fuel Cells Provide Campus Power (from Smarter Technology)

Fuel Cells Provide Campus Power
One of the world's largest fuel cell arrays—2.8 MegaWatts—will be installed in San Diego's Energy Innovation Park at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) campus. FuelCell Energy (Danbury, Conn.) is installing the giant fuel cell capable of powering 2,800 homes—along with two others in the city of San Diego—to provide a renewable store of electricity. In cooperation with the city of San Diego and BioFuels Energy there, the project will turn methane from wastewater into electricity.

Today - Now - Affordable PowerFilm Solar products

I originally wrote about the research that was ongoing in my March 2010 post, about flexible solar panels. Well, you can purchase them now. The company is called PowerFilm Solar (http://www.powerfilmsolar.com ) They have created several product lines of flexible solar films are available now for individual, home, construction and other applications. Here's a link where you can download the
PowerFilm Solar product brochure.

You can even purchase the individual and some of the home products via Amazon! How cool is that? (Thanks Jeff Bezos)

Flexible solar panels open up a lot of possibilities, especially if you're looking to offset your home electricity bill with sun-made power.

What do you think? Is this the beginning of a less-costly entry into truly useful solar power for our lives? Be sure to check out the PowerFilm Solar site, and let me know what you think.

Green Tech Saves That "Other" Green

Everywhere you look, you see references to “green this” and “green that”. Since I work in the real estate field, I have some thoughts on all of this “green” talk.

Green tech uses some new and some old technologies to save you real cash. For example, the growing use of Geothermal Heating & Cooling in new home construction. This one area of Home Tech that can save you thousands of dollars! And if you live in the South, that can be your savings in just the first two years!

A friend of mine uses Geothermal for his newly constructed SIPs home - and his power bills during the hottest months of July and August should have been in the $40 dollar range - and that's to cool a two-story home. Better, is he get's hot water from the same system without using additional energy.

Then there’s solar panels which is both an old and new technology. Old in the sense that it’s been around for a long time. And, new in the way newer development technologies are creating more efficient and useful panels. A recent (circa 2007) breakthrough with solar panels comes from New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Available now, you can purchase flexible roll up solar charger panels. The company that manufactures and developed rollable solar chargers is PowerFilm Inc. Be sure to watch the short video where they shoot the solar panel - and it still works!

Find out if your state offers any incentives for using solar power. Here’s another source of info on “Green Power”.