By Christopher Ulrich, Editor, HomeBuyersGuide.com

Buying a new home is the single largest buy most Americans will ever make. Unfortunately, many spend less time deciding on what house they should invest in than they do on purchasing the latest cell phone. That isn’t to say they’re not capable – they simply lack a method of evaluating house.

Before You Search for a House, Decide What You Really Want

This sounds simple enough, but many people do not spend the time to decide what kind of home buy they want to make. They start visiting open houe events, fall in love with a home and make a bid. Months or years later they decided they bought the wrong home for a range of reasons. “If only we knew then what we know now…” they think.

Plan for the Long Term

Most people will stay in their house anywhere between 5 and 50 years. Think about what your needs will be ten years from now. Ask yourself:

Do you want to starting a family? With how many children? Be sure you have enough bedrooms and that the rooms are big enough for the kids to grow into.

Are you going to send your kids to public school or private school? Private can be very expensive. If you go that route of private school, you may wish to live in a better town with a lower quality school district; both the houses prices and taxes may be lower for a similar home.

Are your children going to be driving in the next several years? Do you have sufficient parking?

Do you anticipate bringing your parents in to live with you?

Do you want a mother-daughter with separate kitchen and entrance or simply an additional bedroom in the main house? Will you prefer a ranch vs. a two-story home?

If you are choosing a location near your work, is there other work nearby if you are required to change jobs? Are you better off driving a little further but being nearer to another urban area?

Plan for the Features You Want

Decide now how many bedrooms and bathrooms you want. Do you want a finished basement? What about a swimming pool and deck? How about a home office? There are many features you can choose in a home, and it is far easier to find it in a home you are looking to invest in, rather than adding it in the future. If there is an essential feature you want that is not in a particular home, make sure you can add it later (ex., do you have room to add a pool down the road). For a complete checklist list of features to review, see http://www.HomeBuyersGuide.com/features.cfm

Solicitors are such experts who watch out legal dealings involved in any issue. Legal actions designed to be simply understood by the ordinary man can become complex and chaotic in countless situations. In such cases, taking the help of professionals who are well acquainted with all the formalities of legal procedures in various situations is the best option in order to deal with such matters smoothly.

Conveyancing is the process of transferring deeds of a property after selling or buying that property. Anyone who has experienced the selling or buying of property will surely agree that hiring a conveyancing solicitor is the best way to deal with the process of transferring property deeds. Many people would argue that solicitors are too expensive and that they would rather do everything themselves to save money.

The statement that solicitors are pricey may hold true, but the dispute that you would save money by not hiring a lawyer and doing everything yourself might not be so correct. The rationale is that the procedure might befall very intricate and you would not be able to deal with all the technicalities.

Furthermore, the time and money spent in arranging the papers and verifying them would easily surpass any fee you would have had to pay a solicitor. There are many benefits of hiring a solicitor, with convenience being the most prominent of them all. Following are some of the benefits of hiring a solicitor while re-mortgaging a home.

Solicitors have lifetime of know-how in dealing with cases concerning land as well as property; for that reason, they would beyond doubt be able to comprehend all the complexities better than anyone else and would be better prepared to generate any documents that might be obligatory in the process. Down to their vast experience, they would know all the lawful procedures involved in re-mortgaging a property, and consequently would be able to handle a case in a better way.

Paperwork is one of the biggest problems of such proceedings. There are a lot of forms to fill out and a lot of legal formalities to fulfil, which might become a headache for a layman. Companies demand different documents all the time and require many formalities to be fulfilled by the customers, which are always a headache without the help of a solicitor. The solicitor will take care of the entire process for you, and you wouldn’t have to lift as much as a finger throughout the whole procedure.

They keep trail of the improvement of the complete re-mortgaging route and hence are always equipped for the next step. Additionally, attributable to their infinite experience they know what the next steps are going to be afore hand and thus can prepare all the obligatory paper work well before time. This ensures smooth running of the whole procedure.

One more gain of hiring a Conveyancing solicitor is that they are capable to recognize a range of terms of the agreement in a better way and therefore would positively prove to be helpful in setting a deal. There might be numerous terms in re-mortgaging contracts which you might not be able to understand, and thus with the help of a solicitor you can ensure making the best possible re-mortgaging contract.

By Christopher Ulrich, Editor, HomeBuyersGuide.com

Buying a house is the single largest buy most Americans will ever make. Unfortunately, many spend less time deciding on what house they should buy than they do on purchasing the latest cell phone. That isn’t to say they’re not capable – they simply lack a method of evaluating house.

Before You Search for a House, Decide What You Really Want

This sounds simple enough, but many people do not spend the time to decide what kind of houses purchase they want to make. They start visiting open houe events, fall in love with a property and make an offer. Months or more than a decade later they decided they bought the wrong home for a variety of reasons. “If only we knew then what we know now…” they think.

Plan for the Long Term

Most people will stay in their house anywhere between 5 and 50 years. Think about what your needs will be ten years from now. Ask yourself:

Are you planning on starting a family? With how many children? Be sure you have enough bedrooms and that the rooms are large enough for the children to grow into.

Are you planning send your children to public school or private school? Private school can be expensive. If you make that choice of private school, you may want to live in a nicer town with a lesser quality school district; both the homes prices and taxes may be lower for a similar home.

Are your children going to be driving in the next several years? Will you have sufficient parking?

Could you see bringing your parents in to live with you?

Do you want a mother-daughter with separate kitchen and entrance or simply an additional bedroom in the main house? Will you prefer a ranch vs. a two-story home?

If you are selecting a location near your work, is there other work nearby if you are required to change jobs? Are you better off driving a greater distance but being nearer to another urban area?

Plan for the Features You Want

Decide now how many bedrooms and bathrooms you want. Do you want a finished basement? What about a swimming pool and deck? How about a home office? There are many features you can choose in a home, and it is far easier to find it in a home you are looking to invest in, rather than adding it in the future. If there is an essential feature you want that is not in a particular home, make sure you can add it later (ex., do you have room to add a pool down the road). For a complete checklist list of features to review, see http://www.HomeBuyersGuide.com/features.cfm

These three departments deal with different facets of your property taxes. Some counties combine these departments because they are not as large and dont have a need for three separate organizations. Everything begins with the Assessors Office, first in deciding what is assessable and then processing the valuation of that re-assessment and all of these decisions are made by your state law.

Assessments go through a procedure within the Assessors Office, to determine the value for that assessable event or assessment year. At the end of the fiscal year all of the values for the year are sent to the Auditor-Controller to apply the correct tax rate (percentage) to each property which varies in each tax rate area and determines the actual dollar amount you owe. The tax rate is set based on the area you live in and the local taxes applied to your local community in addition to the state levied taxes. The tax rate is usually a percentage of the value determined by the Office of the Assessor.

In addition, if in a tax rate area has a special assessment or a direct assessment it is added by the Auditor-Controller’s Office. Finally the data is sent to the Tax Collector’s Office who distributes the bills, collects the money and deposits it in the County Treasury. These three departments compse the property tax branch of your county government and each handle their responsibilities separately.

For example, if you found out you had a lien or delinquent taxes on your property, you need to go to the Tax Collector’s Office to pay them and have the lien lifted and the records brought up to date. However, if you had an issue with the amount of property taxes or the value in which your property taxes are based on you would contact the Office of the Assessor, because that is what the Assessors Office is responsible for. For example, if you had a value issue, you would go to your Assessor, and how to do this is detailed in both the California Little Black Book and also the National Little Black Book.

Once the value is adjusted by the Assessors Office it would get sent to the Auditor-Controller who would adjust the actual dollar amount you owe, and then forward that to the Tax Collector’s Office where you would receive your adjusted bill. Usually, the two offices that handle public service are the Assessor and the Tax Collector, the Auditor-Controller is the silent partner. Normally, any public service issue that needs to be resolved with the Auditor-Controller is requested by the Assessor.

This can be an intricate process and sometimes values are adjusted by the Assessors Office and somehow the actual bills sent out by the Tax Collector’s Office are not adjusted. This happens when the Auditor-Controller, for whatever reason has not adjusted the right bill or there was some sort of processing error. Remember all of these departments are mass processing organizations and they do the best they can however it is your responsibility to make sure that your values are accurate. When this happens a special request needs to be sent by the Assessors Office to have a particular value adjusted and then that will be forwarded to the Tax Collector’s Office who will issue a correct bill. Remember all issues can and will be resolved with a little bit of effort, education and patience.

About the Author: Valerie Faltas, Property Tax Expert has been involved in all facets of real estate for over ten years including assessments, appraisals, estates and trusts, investing and much more. She is a Certified Property Tax Appraiser, Licensed Residential Appraiser and a member of the International Association of Assessment Officers. As a real estate investor and advisor she is well versed in all aspects of real estate. To contact Valerie Faltas go to her website: www.propertytaxlittleblackbook.com

Before I get into the differences between these types of properties, I will define what a PUD is. PUD stands for Planned Unit Development. A PUD is basically a single family home and the ownership of it is treated that way also. The biggest difference is that a PUD is part of a neighborhood, part of a larger development. So although you will own your home if it is a PUD you will pay a small association fee per month to maintain community areas often consisting of parks, pools and sometimes recreation rooms designed for the entire community. There is also an association as there is with condos and so if you want to make major improvements to your home or want to paint your house an outrageous color you will need the approval of your association if you live in a PUD. However, because a PUD is essentially a single family home that is simply part of a larger community you will be responsible for your own repairs and for maintaining your own homeowners insurance since you own your building (house) and land.

A condo and townhouse are essentially the same thing, in terms of legal ownership there is no distinction. Generally, the differences between these two terms refer to the architectural style in which they are built. Often, a condo is more of an apartment style building whereas a townhouse looks like an independent home that may or may not have attached walls to the rest of the townhouses in the community. However, in terms of legal ownership they are the same. When you purchase a condo or townhouse what you are purchasing is cubic airspace of a specific unit with an undivided interest in the common elements of the property. The common elements referring to the lobby, swimming pool, recreation area, land, etc. What you technically own is airspace, you dont actually own any land or building for that matter.

Every condo and townhouse complex has a homeowners’ association and that association is responsible for maintaining the grounds, structures and systems of the complex. That is the reason the association fees are pretty high. You wont need homeowners insurance though because this is part of what is covered by your association. Unlike owning a house where you may have a huge repair to do every five years, you pay monthly and the money accumulates with the association and then is used when needed to maintain the community and all of the structures. If you are looking into purchasing a condo or townhouse it is important to find out about the association. If the association is bankrupt you will have problems in the future with the value of your condo and with any repairs that the complex may need.

A Co-Op (short for Cooperative) is also called an Own-Your-Own is unique in its own right. Structurally a condo and co-op often look the same, like an apartment you own. A co-op is where the building itself is a corporation that holds title to realty. If you are an owner, you own stock in the corporation and you are granted the right to occupy as a shareholder. Co-ops like condos have an association that handles the community building and land. Along with the association is a monthly association fee to maintain the complex. When you own a co-op you wont need homeowners’ insurances because the association covers it. Cooperatives are common on the east coast. Sometimes getting a loan for this type of real estate can be challenging in an area like Los Angeles where cooperatives are not common.

A home also referred to as a single family home or single family residence is the simplest type of ownership to understand. When you own a home you own the building and land beneath it and have full rights to the entire property. You are also fully liable and responsible for repairs since the buck stops with you. You need to make sure you have your own homeowners insurance and are able to cover repairs the home may need. There is no association to handle problems. Consequently there is no association fee that goes along with owning a single family residence.

When you are shopping for a house, condo, co-op or PUD know that there are FOUR costs you need to factor into your monthly overhead: mortgage payment, property taxes, homeowners’ insurance and association fee. Your mortgage payment is only the beginning!