Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro
Gina Giampietro
If you are looking to buy or sell a home, get all the information and the latest updates, tips, and tricks from Gina Giampietro- your professional Pittsburgh Real Estate Agents.
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Top 10 Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Don’t Skip the Home Warranty When Buying a Home
Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro
01/26/17 • -1 min
Home warranties are incredibly important, especially if you buy a home with older appliances. I’ll tell you why today.
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Most people don’t know what home warranties really cover. However, it’s incredibly important that you have a home warranty for your home.
Let’s say you’re looking at a home and that home has a 20-year-old furnace, a 20-year-old AC unit, and older appliances. You really like the layout of the home but you know that you will have to pay to replace or repair those appliances.
When you purchase this home, make sure that you get a home warranty. Having a home warranty and keeping it up to date will help with those costs. In fact, home warranties can absorb 90% of what that cost will be for you.
Home warranties can save you 90% of repair and/or replacement costs.
So, if you find a home you really like and see those repairs coming, a home warranty makes perfect sense for you.
A lot of people get a home warranty when they buy a home but forget to renew it. You have to renew your warranty every year. Home warranties protect you and cover more than your furnace and AC units. Home warranties cover electrical, plumbing issues, toilets, doorbells—basically, all major components of your home are covered, along with some minor components.
Like every insurance policy, there are things that are covered and things that are not. Make sure you check which items are which. That said, major items in your home should be covered.
I always recommend that you get a home warranty when you purchase a home. If you have any othe...
The 10 Commandments of Home Buying
Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro
12/12/16 • -1 min
There are 10 commandments every home buyer should follow. If you break any of these commandments, you may not make it to the closing table.
There are a few things you should never do when you are in the middle of buying a home. Here are the 10 commandments for home buyers:
- You shall not change your job, become self-employed, or quit.
- You shall not buy a car, truck, or van — unless you want to live in it.
- You shall not charge your credit card excessively or let your accounts fall behind.
Why Loyalty Is Important in Real Estate
Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro
09/30/16 • -1 min
Working with an agent throughout the home buying process is important. If you look at homes without their knowledge, it may end up costing you in the long run.
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When you’re out looking to buy a home, you should have an agent on your side to help you find potential properties and guide you through the complicated process. However, a lot of buyers have been going rogue lately and getting in trouble because of it.
In today’s world, you can go online, click on a listing, and talk to the first agent that reaches out to you. A lot of them will ask if you are working with another agent. If you are, you should always say yes. If you are working with an agent and you say no, you are setting up your agent to not get paid.
You need someone in your corner.
The agent that opens the door for you is the one that is going to be paid for selling that home to you. Telling an agent you aren't working with anybody just to get in the door is a bad move in the long run. Instead of the process becoming about you and your home, it will become all about conflict.
How Seller Assist Helps Pay Your Closing Cost
Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro
06/17/16 • -1 min
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Closing costs are going to be part of your transaction when you purchase a home, whether you’re paying cash or getting a loan. When paying cash, the closing costs will be lower. When getting a loan, they’re much higher - anywhere from 5% to 8%, depending on your tax escrows and what your lender is requiring to hold. When you’re making an offer, your overall cost can be quite high after you include your down payment and closing fee.
This is where seller assist comes in. Seller assist can be anywhere from 3% to 6%, based on the loan you’re receiving. Out of courtesy for the seller, if you’re going to ask them to pay your closing costs, you have to look at what their real net sale amount is. For example, on a $100,000 loan and purchase price, if you ask the seller to pay 6% of those closing costs, you’re really only giving the seller $94,000. The seller is more or less gifting you $6,000. Therefore, if you come into that $100,000 purchase and want to offer them $90,000, and have them pay another 6,000
Be kind to the sell...
Save Money with a Pre-Inspection on Your Pittsburgh Home
Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro
06/15/16 • -1 min
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Those aren’t the ones I want you to concentrate on, though. I want you to concentrate on the home inspections. In real estate, you list a home, get an offer, you negotiate, the buyer does their inspection, and you negotiate again. Wouldn’t it be better just to negotiate once?
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If you’re listing your home, it might be a good idea to get a pre-inspection. Most buyers have their own inspection done, so why is this important? Well, most buyers won’t take your home inspection, and they will do another inspection. However, they will take your pest inspection, and 9 times out of 10, they will take your radon inspection.
Those aren’t the ones I want you to concentrate on, though. I want you to concentrate on the home inspections. In real estate, you list a home, get an offer, you negotiate, the buyer does their inspection, and you negotiate again. Wouldn’t it be better just to negotiate once?
When you have a pre-inspection on your home, you know exactly what’s wrong with it and exactly what needs to be fixed. You can either price your house according to the repairs and disclose them, or fix the repairs that will come up in the buyer’s home inspection. If you take that latter route, you can negotiate to your number, because you know all the repairs have been fixed and there’s nothing wrong with your home.
When you negotiate twice, you leave money on the table
Don’t Get Stuck With Contingencies in the Pittsburgh Market
Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro
05/26/16 • -1 min
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Sale and settlement contingencies can be a painful situation for someone who needs to buy a home and sell at the same time in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, we see it on a daily basis.
The best thing for you to do when you have a sale and settlement contingency is first go to the lender and see if you can actually obtain two mortgages. That way, you can proceed with your new home before your old home sells. That way you’ll have a lot of options.Advice for Pittsburgh Real Estate Investors
Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro
03/07/17 • -1 min
Pittsburgh is an attractive place for real estate investors because of the low prices. However, those low prices don’t always translate to high profits.
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Pittsburgh can be a great market for real estate investors to get into. I probably get three to five calls a week from investors looking at properties to buy and flip here in town. Most of them think it will be a simple process, but it can become pretty complicated if you don’t have your ducks in a row.
More and more investors are coming into the market thinking they can get an automatic 60% ARV. However, if you’re using someone else’s money, you are only going to make a 20% to 30% return after paying the lender and vendors off. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. When there is a property out there with a possibility of a 60% ARV, every investor comes to bid on it. That drives the price up and the ARV down.
One of the biggest problems that investors have when flipping homes here is that they don’t have a lot of local connections. They think they can just hire any old person off the Internet to get everything done right. That’s a bad way to do business. You need to visit the area, see it, understand the market, and understand the properties you’re looking at.
Tips for Preparing Your Home for the Spring Market
Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro
02/22/17 • -1 min
Are you thinking about selling your house this spring? Here's how you need to prepare your house for the market.
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If you plan on selling your house this spring, there are a few things you should do to prepare your house for the market here in Pittsburgh.
For starters, I'm big on home inspections because they tell you about any problems that would come up during the time your house is listed. If your home doesn't need any additional repairs when you put it on the market (because you already had a home inspection), you can pretty much stick to your price.
Next, you have to prepare your yard after the Pittsburgh winters that make our yards look horrible. Put out mulch, rocks, and plants to make your landscaping beautiful and add some fresh flowers for color. You should also furnish your porch and patio—bring out wicker or white outdoor furniture and add bright cushions. You want to make your whole porch or deck pop and show that there's space for entertaining.
Cleaning is also a necessary task that must be done. When your home goes on the market, you need that spring cleaning. Make sure everything is sparkling clean from the windows to the jambs to the floors and walls. Get rid of cobwebs in the basement and bring some flower...
What Are the Best Ways to Prep Your Home for Winter?
Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro
11/22/16 • -1 min
There are a variety of precautions you can take to prepare your home for winter. Today we’ll go over the most important ones.
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What can you do to get your home ready for winter?
Let’s starts with the outdoors. Any outdoor water hoses need to be drained and shut off. AC unit lines should also be drained and shut off at the valve. Your whole AC unit, in fact, should be blanketed with a waterproof cover. As for your furnace, replace the filter and have it fully serviced by a professional so that you aren’t worrying about it breaking down in the middle of a blizzard.
What about the inside? Start by considering installing a programmable thermostat. This will allow you to reduce your energy costs by programming the home for a lower temperature while you’re away and then normalizing it before you get back home so you can walk into a toasty interior.
Make Sure You Work With a Lender Before Starting Your Home Search
Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro
04/25/17 • -1 min
Lately, I’ve talked to a number of buyers who think they can skip the pre-approval before they start looking at homes. There are a number of reasons why this is a mistake!
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I get emails and calls on a daily basis from people who want to look at homes but don’t want to get pre-approved. However, getting pre-approved is a very important part of buying a home.
First of all, don’t forget that we are in a seller’s market right now. If you find a home and there are multiple offers on it already and you haven’t talked to a lender yet, then you can’t make an offer. Sellers in this market want to make sure that potential buyers have been pre-approved and are prepared to make a purchase.
Pre-approvals also help you make sure that you are in your price range. Just because you read an article online that says interest rates are at a certain level doesn’t mean that’s the rate you would get with a 10-year loan, 15-year loan, or 30-year loan. Online articles also tend to skip overpaying a mortgage insurance premium.
When a lender pulls your credit, they’ll talk to you about your payments, how much money you can put down, and what kind of house you can afford. A...
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FAQ
How many episodes does Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro have?
Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro currently has 23 episodes available.
What topics does Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro cover?
The podcast is about News, Top, Pittsburgh, Property, Estate, Local, Home, Pro, Real, Podcasts, For, Selling, Search and Tips.
What is the most popular episode on Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro?
The episode title 'The Reality of Purchasing a Rehab Home' is the most popular.
How often are episodes of Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro released?
Episodes of Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro are typically released every 18 days.
When was the first episode of Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro?
The first episode of Pittsburgh Real Estate Podcast with Gina Giampietro was released on Mar 14, 2016.
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