Barrington IL Real Estate

Buying Homes in Barrington with a Buyers Agent - Writing a Contract - Here is a re-cap of what we have looked at so far.

Buying Barrington Illinois Real Estate - Is Your Barrington IL Realtor Fully Explaining The Purchase Contract then
Page one dealt with the property you wish to make an offer and how much you want to pay.
Page two dealt with closing date and possession, disclosures, attorney review.
Page three talked about inspections and mortgage contingencies.
Page four addressed  insurance and condominium rules.

Now to some legal items on the contract. All of page five is ready to go. We do not fill in any information here but you need to know what it means.

The above paragraph addresses The Deed. In easy terms this is a document that transfers ownership of the property from the seller to the buyer - you.

The Title paragraph deals with passing along title to the property. The title is like the history of the home. All sales and changes are recorded on the title and for older homes it can go back a long way and have a lot of information on it. Your attorney will check the title to make sure it is "clear" for you to buy. He will look for clouds - sound odd but is a good word to use. The seller is also going to insure your title. So if anything turns up in the future the insurance policy protects your right to the title.

The sellers attorney in most cases will order a Plat of Survey just before you close. This shows the boundaries of your property and the buildings on it. If a neighbor has built on what is to be your property, it will have to be taken care of before you close. it will show the roads, pathways etc and will be marked - locally orange painted stakes or orange flagged stakes are used. You will be shown the printed plat before you close. Do not feel obliged to just accept it - if it looks wrong or you have questions this is the time to ask. (If buying a condo you will not get a plat. Townhomes will get one because you own the land under the building.)

In Illinois we typically close at the closing table on the closing date in a title or attorneys office. We very rarely close through an Escrow. Your attorney will let you know how he/she will handle the closing. As a buyer it is an exciting time, whilst the signing of papers may be arduous at the end you get your keys - what a great feeling - The House is yours!

I promise when we write your contract it will not take as long as this - Page 6 coming soon.

Barrington IL Real Estate - Your Barrington Illinois Buyers Agent Writes Your Offer To Purchase - Page Four

If you are Buying Barrington IL Real Estate - as your Barrington Illinois Buyers Agent I will be writing your offer. Page four deals with Insurance and Condo/Common Interests but you might want to do a quick re-cap, please follow the links below.

Buying Barrington Illinois Real Estate - Is Your Barrington IL Realtor Fully Explaining The Purchase Contract then
Page one dealt with the property you wish to make an offer and how much you want to pay.
Page two dealt with closing date and possession, disclosures, attorney review.
Page three talked about inspections and mortgage contingencies.

Property Insurance.

Can you imagine what it would be like to find the home of your dreams, pay for your inspections, wait a month or more then a week before closing call your insurance man only to find out that your nearly new home cannot be insured? What would you or could you do? Well that's another story but we are dealing with the part of your contract that safeguards you from this issue.


Your purchase contract has an insurance contingency written in to protet you in case you cannot get insurance on the property you want to buy. Within 10 days from your contract being accepted you need to contact an insurance agent to see if the home can be insured:

• If yes - wonderful we can move forward.
• If no - sad but as long as we can prove it to the seller - you can cancel the contract.
• If no but you do not do anything about it - you must buy the property.

Therefore I'll make sure you take care of this!

Flood Insurance.

When a seller lists a home for sale he must answer the question: Is the home located in a flood hazard area?
If you proceed with the contract knowing it is a flood area you are bound to close. If however you later find out that although the seller said no - that the property requires flood insurance - you can back out. Flood insurance is very expensive but for some properties it is essential. You can check a homes location relevant to flood areas at FEMA. Just enter the address.



So when does this need to be done by? 10 days again! When you contact your insurance agent he/she will be able to tell you if you need flood insurance.  If your mortgage contingency date is earlier, then we need to know earlier - this is unusual but may occur.

As your agent I will be on top of this.

Condo/Common Interests.

When you buy a property that has condominium ownership - not just a condo -  you are buying the buildings and a share of the surrounding land. This is known as Common Interests and you usually get a percentage share of ownership. I will explain the differences if you choose a condo ownership property.

As the buyer you are entitled to read the condo associations rules and regulations - known as the CCR's. We need to look for any unauthorozed improvements made by the seller. You should take the time to read the CCR's they will control what you can and cannot do as an owner. This may sound unfair but rules are for the good of all members to live together in harmony.  Your attorney will take care of making sure all these things are attended to but we don't want surprises!

By now you should be getting the idea. We have lots of things to attend to and it would be easy for you to forget. So far we have involved your attorney, a home inspetor, a loan officer, an insurance agent, possibly a condo association and we still have lots more to do. See  you soon for page 5!

If you are Buying Barrington IL Real Estate - as your Barrington Illinois Buyers Agent I will be writing your offer. Page two deals with closing, disclosures and Attorney review.

If you missed my introduction read it here: Buying Barrington Illinois Real Estate - Is Your Barrington IL Realtor Fully Explaining The Purchase Contract then
Page one dealt with the property you wish to make an offer and how much you want to pay.

Page 2 of our purchase contract first deals with closing and then possession of the home you want to buy. The first thing to decide is a closing date you would like. We must factor in how long it will take to:

• Secure your mortgage or gain access to your funds
• Weekend, holidays or other days when it would be very inconvenient for you - family vacation etc.
• Sale and close of your existing property
• Sufficient time for the seller to move out - I will often talk to the listing agent about the sellers flexibility before we write the offer.

If you read the paragraph following the date you will notice that this date can be changed if both sides agree in writing. This may occur for a number of reasons but most commonly your mortgage finance is not ready or a home close of the buyers (you) has been delayed. Closing will take place at an office of the Title Company that is providing the Title Insurance Policy and should be close to the property or as agreed usually by the attorneys.

What is a Title Insurance Policy for? Simply a policy that guarantees your title to the house in the event of something being found out later, that was not discovered before closing. The seller will buy and pay for your policy - nice! If you are getting a mortgage you are going to buy a policy to cover the mortgage for the lender - seems fair. Everyone is protected.

Paragraph 6 simply says that possession of the property will be given to the buyer at closing - unless sated differently later in the contract. It is normal to get your home at closing.

Paragraph 7 deals with the disclosures. All home owners must complete disclosures when they list the home for sale and these are provided to you. (The only exclusion is bank owned homes - clearly the bank could not answer any of the question so they are not completed). You can submit your offer without the disclosures but they must be provided to you if a contract is agreed upon as they form part of the contract. You must understand and agree to the content of the disclosures for the contract to be fully valid and proceed. As your Realtor I prefer that we see them before submitting an offer. It is easy for me to get them.

Paragraph 8 deals with expenses or paid items that are attached to the property. Real estate taxes are the biggest cost item here and are paid a year in arrears. Because the taxes for this year are not calculated until next year we commonly ask for 105% to 110% of this years amount to cover the increase. If there are condo dues or other unpaid bills these should all be paid up to date at closing - your attorney will ask for a statement to show special tax assessments or condo dues are paid to date. The seller agrees to pay any final utility bills.

The last paragraph on page two deals with attorney review. There are 4 options and your Realtor will explain the differences as 2 are very close in meaning. Simply your attorney will review the agreed and signed contract and he must do this within 5 business days of the date you all signed it. If there are changes he/she wants, they must be communicated to the sellers attorney within those 5 days. As your Realtor I make sure your attorney gets a copy of the contract as soon as possible.

There is one item on the contract that he cannot ask to be changed and to you this is very important. He cannot request a change in the price you and the seller have agreed.

As on page one you will initial the bottom of the page which also shows the property address. You'll see there are very few blanks to be filled in on this page.

Thanks for reading this weeks episode - Your Barrington Buyers Agent will return soon for page three. In the meantime it looks like we will be having a white Christmas this year - my favorite. Happy Christmas to all.

If you are Buying Barrington IL Real Estate - as your Barrington Illinois Buyers Agent I will be writing your offer. Let's start with Page one.

If you missed my introduction read it here: Buying Barrington Illinois Real Estate - Is Your Barrington IL Realtor Fully Explaining The Purchase Contract

• Paragraph 1 shown below is where we will write your name/s. If we do not know the sellers name we commonly put OOR which is Owner of Record.
• Paragraph 2 is the property information. We enter the lot size, the address including county and PIN - Property Identification Number. If the property has assigned parking this will also be entered i.e. if buying a condo it may have an assigned parking space number. The real estate is not just the address. It includes the land below and the sky above, anything fixed to the house, and any improvements which means the building, patio, swimming pool, deck, lights, electric supply, driveway, lot and so on.

Line 4 refers to Dual Agency. By now your Barrington Buyers Agent should have explained 2 things to you. The first is designated agent, meaning they are an agent working on behalf of their brokerage, and second Dual Agency. Dual agency is where an agent works for both the seller of the property and the buyer of the property. Dual agency is not where one agent sells your current home and helps you buy another. More about Dual agency and Barrington IL Real Estate transactions later.

Moving on paragraph 3 deals with fixtures and personal property. What is the difference. Think of it this way - fixtures are attached to the house - personal property is free standing. Personal property usually goes with the seller and fixtures stay with the home. However there are some differences and some items of personal property are expected to stay. This part of the contract will make sure you get what you want with no surprises later. Sometimes the seller will make it known they are taking a certain fixture - perhaps a family heirloom.

Your Barrington Buyers Agent is going to check off everything that you want or that has been stated as being sold with the property. Kitchen appliances stay because they are fixtures - everyone expects the fridge but it is often free standing and could disappear. Some things here may seem silly - like carpets and planted vegetation - can you imagine closing on your home opening the door and finding all the carpets  have disappeared - after the shock of realizing every bush and tree has been taken away.

There is space here for items being included or not included - remember the family heirloom - perhaps it is a crystal chandelier - this is where we will show the seller is going to keep it. If you want the play-set in the back yard - this is where we'll write that down.

Lastly if the seller is offering a Home Warranty - we want to make sure you get it so there is space for that too. If you want a warranty but the seller is not offering one or will not pay for one - don't worry - you can buy one after you close, they are not that expensive and may save you thousands in repair bills. Prices start at $400 - more for extras or larger Barrington IL Real Estate Homes.

Finally on page one we get down to the money. Paragraph 4 deals with the amount you want to pay for the property and how much earnest money you want to put down. As your Barrington Buyers Agent I will show you what comparable homes have sold for and discuss with you a strategy for getting the house at a fair price. We'll enter a starting amount in the blank. Think of earnest money as a deposit. It goes towards your purchase - we'll enter the amount here and how it is going to be paid. Earnest money amounts vary but remember the seller may not like what you are offering and ask for more. It is negotiable just like the price. Show your commitment by offering a good solid amount and consider increasing it once we have done the home inspection. It might just beat out a competing offer!

This page needs your initials at the bottom and the residential real estate you want to buy in Barrington Illinois will be written here and on every page.

Thanks for reading this weeks episode - Your Barrington Buyers Agent will return soon for page two. In the meantime if you have not started it's time to decorate your Christmas Tree.

Are you buying Real Estate in Barrington Illinois? As your Barrington IL Realtor I am here to fully explain the purchase contract.

A purchase contract is used to make an offer on any residential Barrington Illinois real estate you want to buy and it is 15 pages long. Ugh I hear you say - maybe so, but you must take the time to go through it and understand it before you sign. It is a legal document and not to be taken lightly. Some of it will not apply to you - so we are not talking hours - 30 minutes should be enough unless you have lots of questions. I am going to go through the contract in stages here on this blog in a series of articles - hopefully making it seem less of an arduous task.

Let's get to basics for you.

• The contracts that any Barrington IL Realtor will use are provided by our Barrington Illinois real estate board - The North Shore Barrington Association of Realtors
• The contract is written by a panel of Attorneys and approved by the above Board. Sometimes they will ask for Broker input
• The contract is regularly updated - Your Barrington IL Realtor should only use the most up to date contract forms
• The form is typed with spaces - blanks - for us to fill in
• Your Barrington IL Realtor is only qualified to fill in the blanks - a well trained Realtor will know what to put in the blanks
• What about empty blanks - simply if we are not going to use a blank we must enter as not applicable - N/A
• Your Barrington IL Realtor should not write down the side, the top, the bottom, or add pages - to do so would be considered practicing law and I am not an attorney.
• If you want anything added to a contract you should hire an attorney to write an addendum for you
• If your additions or proposals are to be part of your Barrington Illinois Real Estate offer - ask your attorney to prepare it before we present the offer

As your Barrington IL Realtor I am required to give you a copy of the contract you signed. Any changes made to price, closing date i.e. those blanks we talked about - require your initials and again require me to provide you with a copy.

As we go forward with your purchase it is my job to make sure everything we wrote on the contract is being done. Your attorney will take care of the legal side, your loan officer will take care of the finance side and I will oversee it all until you get the keys. In my next article we will go through the most important parts of page one and I will update this post with links as we move forward.

If  at any time you have questions about buying Barrington Illinois Real Estate, filling in contracts or how I work as your Barrington IL Buyers Agent Realtor - just leave a comment here or call me. You can search for your piece of Barrington IL Real Estate right from this blog. Follow the link below.