
Buying a home is often a time filled with both excitement and anxiety, and if you are a family with children, those feelings can be even more intense. With kids, your house hunting strategy will be different than that of a single person or a retired couple. Our REALTORS® in Sarasota understand the ins and outs of the housing market, and we've put together a checklist of things to consider as you prepare to find your family's dream home.

Buying a home is a huge deal especially for first-time home buyers. Apart from being the single biggest purchase you will ever make, the process itself can be complicated. When you work with one of our real estate agents from Wagner Realty, we will always be on hand to help guide you through the entire process. Below are the key lessons to learn today to help make your home-purchase journey a little less stressful.
Put Aside Your Down Payment Money
It's common for lenders to require you to put down 20 percent as down payment for your new home. Although many lenders allow as little as 3 percent for first-time home buyers, committing anything less than 20 percent will mean higher loan costs and add...

One of the first steps our real estate agents recommend when you decide to start shopping for a home is to get pre-qualified or pre-approved for a mortgage. While many people use these terms interchangeably, they are different and depending on your situation you might choose one over the other. Here's what you need to know.

You've hammered out a deal and aced the mortgage qualification, inspection, and appraisal. Next comes the walkthrough, then the closing and you're officially a homeowner.
Instead of contemplating your new living room color scheme or planning your first cookout, our real estate agents urge you to slip into detective mode. We've listed five things to include on your final walkthrough list:

If you've spent every weekend house-hunting, bidding, and finally negotiating a deal on the perfect Sarasota home, you're ready for life to return to normal. Your closing is the final step and then you're done. Before you celebrate, remember what baseball great, Yogi Berra once said, "It ain't over till it's over."
Our real estate agents are always excited when we help buyers find the right home. We don't want to sound at all negative, but you should understand that unanticipated problems can sometimes put the kibosh on your closing. We provide this list so you can anticipate and possibly prevent these five problems.