RE: Real Estate Podcast - Video

Ben & Clint (00:54)
name is Ben Harang I'm here with Clint C. Galliano Realtor

Keller Williams Realty Bayou Partners agents, the Houma Thibodaux area. This is our inaugural podcast. What are we going to talk about? Buyer consultations and the first step in the home buying process. Welcome Clint. Hey Ben, how are you doing? Doing terrific.

How you doing Clint? I'm doing wonderful. Glad to hear it.

So, the first step in the home buying process. A lot of people think they need to go see a house. They see a house they like, they want to go see it. And that's the first step. Usually doesn't work out real well for anybody. No, especially these days. With the way things are happening with when a house that's priced right hits the market, it doesn't last long.

So the first thing somebody ought to do be to engage a real estate professional to guide them through the process. I you to talk a little bit about the buyer consultation. All right. So the way I operate my business is I like to hold buyer consultations with buyers that I work with.

Generally that involves with them meeting me here at the office and we go over their wants and needs and try and tease out any particular details that may affect their ability to purchase a home. You know, whether it's financing specific place that they just have to live near.

many people are in the family, whether they want to workshop or don't want to do yard work, figure out what they're looking for. Then we talk about the financing in more detail. And a lot of the buyers that I work with already have their financing lined up or they're in process for getting a pre-approval. And pre-approval is key. Like Ben mentioned a minute ago, if you don't have a pre-approval when you're

looking at a home and if it's price right, somebody else is liable to be able to get it under contract before you get a chance to. Even though the market slowed, if the home is price right and it's the one you want, there's always a chance somebody could come in and get it under contract before you're ready. So once the buyer consultation is complete,

If it's not already done, the next step would be to get that pre-approval from not just one, but I always recommend three lenders. That way you can compare rates, fees, terms, because the rate isn't the bottom line on that. And that's all I'm going say about financing because that's not my ValleyWIC, but refer you to lending professionals that can help you more on that.

standing in our lane is key. Everybody do their thing and that generally gets us to the closing table. While we're talking about buyer consultation, does a buyer's agent cost you anything?

Yes.

But would not suggest that you go at it alone, a process where you are negotiating against with a real estate professional. Because in my mind, you lose before you start when that happens. Better off engaging a real estate professional. There's something called a buyer representation agreement. I asked to sign.

as a fee attached to that agreement.

Once that agreement is signed, the idea is to make an offer, including that fee house. It's really pretty simple when it comes down to it. There's no guarantee they'll pay all or any the fee. But if you ask for it and they don't agree to your offer, you will know what they're paying before.

you sign or accept a counter offer. And we'll have a discussion about who's going to pay what and how we get paid. People, some people shy away the idea by getting paid. In a new world of transparency, there's no hiding from it. But we need to have the conversation. It's usually pretty painless. And we build it into the house.

to price of the house like it was built in before. Red-leathered day on a calendar of August, 24.

Yeah. The, it's kind of funny, you know, it's like there are people in different camps. Some will say, well, the seller pays for, for that, you know, the seller's always paid for that or the buyer pays for that. And ultimately you can make any argument you want and justify it however you want. It's a cost of the transaction. The transaction pays it. Yeah.

It's a cost of doing business.

It's a negotiable cost. You may not want to pay for it. If you don't, then you're on your own. It's not an advised route, but you know, some people are at a level of sophistication where, hey, they can represent themselves, but not necessarily being a licensed agent. You don't know the process from beginning to end unless you're extremely experienced in.

You know, so again, reiterating what Ben said, unless you have that information, then you always want to have somebody looking out for your best interests. Going it alone is really not a good idea. You're to get into a situation where you really, you don't understand what's happening. You might agree to something that you didn't intend to agree.

Or that you don't understand. You think it means one thing and it's something totally different. My daughter is a licensed agent. And when I'm doing a deal for me, personally, I like representing myself because you get emotionally, you become emotionally involved in the transaction and you need somebody to make sure you're thinking with a clear head. To kind of give you the

Play the devil's advocate when they need to play the devil's advocate, tell you the truth. So you can make a decision based on all of the information that's available to you to get a more successful outcome.

You know, but I mean, that's 100 % right. You know, as when I work with buyers, my goal is to get the buyer in the house at terms that are acceptable to the buyer. You know, I'm working in their best interest. I'm looking out to make sure that things that...

may be a detriment to the appraisal or a detriment to owning and maintaining the house that we make sure that those are all straightened out ahead of time. I'm making sure that deadlines are kept. I'm making sure that again, getting to the closing table without any hiccups because that's, that's one of the things that we really

A lot of people run into hiccups. And if you don't have a buyer's agent representing you.

You know, may not necessarily have the experience on how to deal with that or the knowledge on how to deal with that. And if, if a buyer and a seller are dealing directly with each other, there's so many pitfalls that can, that both sides can fall in.

If one side has a professional, the other side does not. This is all the one with the professional is gonna get a better deal than the one without the professional.

And it gets to the point to where you think you two days from the closing and something comes up. All of a sudden it's like, whoa, how do we deal with this? It's probably not something that a professional hasn't seen before as a way to handle it. If you don't, if you've never done it, you don't know how to handle it. Taunton and Nann has a lien against her and because she stood at one point to inherit the house. So

you know, there's a lien on this house and so you can't sell it. And so that means the sellers had that. And so the seller can't sell it until the lien gets cleared up and you as the buyer sitting there, well, what do I do? And it's ultimately it's up to the seller to get it cleared up.

I think you've got a story about something similar, don't you Ben? We had a house in the lot and house had a clear title to it and the lot sat in front of the house, facing by Lafourche. People that owned the house thought they owned the They only owned half of the lot.

That was a full stop on the closing. At the end of the day, we were able to close on the house, was on a portion of the front lot to access the water while we continue to clear up the title issue that will get cleared up. But chances are without somebody involved in that, that deal would have fallen through.

not because nobody did anything extraordinary, extraordinarily, extraordinarily necessarily, but because they were cooler heads. You're out how the deal done. again, the emotion part of part of a realtor's job is to keep the emotion out of it. He was psychologist, we're counselors, we're a lot, we're a lot of things, but we

People get emotional about buying and selling property. If we can keep emotion in check, having an orderly, thoughtful, organized process, it helps everybody involved.

Yeah, they...

I feel like sometimes that I've.

I've had a bunch of interesting situations.

with buyers and listings and some of them were insurmountable just because of the situation.

You know, one situation, seller.

bought a house while she was married to one ex-husband.

And let's see how this was. he did a...

He did a grant to her.

except she was married to another husband.

And it was done. The paperwork was signed in Mississippi. And so it wasn't specific to Louisiana. She took the paperwork, filed it with the parish. And so the parish, you know, they said, okay, this document's filed and part of the record now. Didn't check it, whether it was the right paperwork or whether it was filed correctly. She never signed it to accept it, which was part of Louisiana law.

And so because of that, next husband, he wound up passing away due to illness. And she was left trying to track down contact and negotiate with his children to have them sign off to release his claim to half of the property because

the whole situation was handled improperly. And that deal wound up falling apart because the children didn't want to have anything to do with her because they kind of halfway blamed her for the condition her dad was, or their dad was in when he passed away. So they, as far as I know that the property will never sell.

You bring up a good point. had a meeting here this week with talking about who can sell property with successions and people and undivided interest in property means. if there's a professional involved on the listing side, a lot of that stuff should be vetted out on the front end. I'm dealing with succession right now.

and nephew inherited the house and the succession people asking me have this has a succession been completed the succession has not been completed but niece and nephew have the authority to sell the house on behalf of the succession once the house sells then they can finish with the succession and who inherits what other way to do it would be to have a judgment of possession

which is the people that inherit the property to have an undivided interest in the property.

seen a situation where children inherited mom and daddy's house. The children had IRS liens and means if they ever get ownership to that house, they'll never be able to sell it. For an extended number of years, the attorney knowing that, not lead to succession. Succession over property.

Received the funds and whatever they did with the funds after that was. Now, but. It was a professional handling and knowing how to get it done, whereas if did somebody just walked in and said do it to mom and daddy succession and give it to us. They've never been able to sell that house.

Yep. As always, always right ways and wrong ways and ways that make you scratch your head. And some, you know, there's some, some property along by Lafourche that my opinion will never be able to be sold. You know, a title problem in the thirties and I don't know how to fix it, but it's smarter than me might be able to, but, you know, it just too many successions have been

Done done and

But it'd have to go back into the 30s to do successions on first one and then every succession on all of the descendants. Did that and the property isn't worth.

fees and cost of clearing the title. And you're looking at five, 700 heirs to a piece of property. Yeah, you know, and there's something called a petition suit. Well, you can actually file a lawsuit and clear the title. Again, that takes money. Yeah. So

And is the property worth it? Well, let's wrap up our first. I guess go ahead and go ahead and throw in your name that you like so we can kind of hear what it sounds like. Clint C. Galeano Realtor. I'm talking about the name of the podcast. no. R.E. real estate. You got to specify what name. So you say name, I say my name. And my name is Ben Harang

And we on West Park in Houma right now, we don't know where we're to originate these podcasts from. Can do it with we're now sitting in the same. Conference room in Houma we can do this. Two different locations or the same location, so we'll we'll see how it. goes Take it from there. enjoyed it. Thank you. Will will do this again.

Yep. See you next time, Ben. All right.