When You Buy, Think Like a Seller

David Kucic, RA
CRS, GRI, ABR, e-PRO, AHWD, CDPE                                   
First Sergeant, USA (Ret)
RE/MAX Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii

Getting re-assigned to Schofield Barracks, Hickam Air Force Base, Tripler Army Medical Center, Ft. Shafter, Pearl Harbor or Marine Corps Base Kaneohe?  Are you considering purchasing Hawaii Real Estate?  If you do buy, how soon until you are going to become a SELLER?  Besides trying to get a bargain of a price,  getting the seller to pay some or all of your closing costs for you and having a comfortable mortgage payment with a great interest rate, you must think “outside the box”.

Where is outside the box?  That would be YOU placing yourself in the shoes of the SELLER.  Your real estate agent that works as a “buyers agent” doesn’t cost you anything with most companies when they are representing you.  Team Kucic of RE/MAX Honolulu is one of those companies.  How was your buyers agent going to get paid if it didn’t come from you?

The Buyers Brokerage Company gets paid by the SELLER.  In most cases, the cost to the SELLER is 5-6% of the purchase price IN REAL ESTATE BROKERAGE  FEES ALONE.  Add another approximately 2% on top of that for ESCROW FEES and the SELLERS portion of the CLOSING COSTS.

Where are we now?  You are now a SELLER and you should know that it will take you approximately 7-8% of the purchase price for you to sell your home.  As an example, lets say you purchased a home and took out a mortgage for $520,000.  You keep the home for 3 years and then it is time to move or PCS (for my Hawaii military buyers).  Assuming that you used your VA loan entitlement to purchase the property with a 100% financed, 30 year fixed rate mortgage, your loan balance on that 520k may be around 500k for example.  These are rough examples but should be effective to put it in perspective for you.

•·         You bought home for 520k in 2007 which included your VA Funding Fee

•·         3 years later in 2010 it is time to sell

•·         Your loan balance is now 500k because you paid down some of the principal on the loan

•·         It will cost you approximately 7-8% to sell your home

•·         At 7%, your fees to sell your home will be approximately $35,000.  At 8% it will be $40,000.

•·         Your house must be worth AT LEAST $535,000 to $540,000 in order for you to just BREAK EVEN!

Are you still ready to buy?  Make sure you have professional real estate representation when you seek purchasing a piece of Hawaii Real Estate.  Get good counsel and do a good analysis of what you are getting into when you make the decision to buy.  For more information, visit me on the web, send me a personal email with your questions or call me.

Mailto:david@davidkucic.com

Cellular: (808) 218-9338 

On the web at……. www.davidkucic.com for all of your Hawaii Real Estate Needs

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