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Planning and Alignment 🎯

100+ texts  

• Initial texts sent with my friend I am co-buying with. 
• Determine what type of home we want, location, goals, and questions we need to get answered.

5+ calls  

• Where do we start?
• Are we actually doing this? 
• Which one of us is doing what to get started? 
• Do we know anyone in our networks that can help answer questions? 
• How much money do we need? 
• Can we afford this?

5+ meetings

• In-person drinks / lunch to further refine goals and lay out our blindspots. 
• Discuss what answers we have uncovered and what questions still exist. 
• Share our research and build trust and confidence in each other.

10+ hours

• Spent researching operating agreements, operating agreement templates, legal structures, form filings, etc.

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Finding a Lender 💰

30+ emails

• Requests to meet and talk to lenders about our use case and see if they will lend to us.
• Follow ups with lenders we met to ask clarifying questions, scheduling second calls, etc.

5+ calls

• Initial calls with lenders.

50+ texts

• Talking about which lender we liked and scheduling another call with them.

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Finding an Agent 👩‍💼

10+ hours

• Google researching agents, agent reviews, agent socials.
• Educating ourselves on buyer agent agreements, NAR requirements, and looking at templates.

100+ texts

• Asking our family and friends for referrals to agents.
• Talking about which lender we liked and scheduling time for a second call with them.

5+ calls

• Interviewing agents, asking questions, and understanding their process.

20+ emails

• Following up with agents, asking questions, sharing our goals and preferences.

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Pre-approval 🔮

40+ emails

• Sending info and docs to the lender, clarifying specific info needed, lender requesting additional info multiple times than initially requested.

40+ texts

• Complaining about the lender’s lack of communication, checking each other’s progress on uploading docs, etc.

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Co-buy Partner Dropped Out 😵‍💫

20+ emails

One co-buyer dropped out of the group. We had to notify our lender and get pre-approved again. We had to update our lender as well.

100+ texts

Texting with the friend that dropped out of the co-buy group. Updates to operating agreement and realignment with the new smaller group.

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Looking at Listings with Agent 🏡

200+ texts

• Sending Zillow listings back and forth with our agent.

40+ hours

• Trying to create G Sheets and formulas to analyze listings in more detail. 
• Researching a city, looking at data, reading reports, browsing local real estate news and trends.
• Endlessly scrolling Zillow and Redfin listings.

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Closing 🫠

90+ emails

• Trying to connect the lender team with the agent team to make introductions and align them for the closing process.
• Figuring out if/when the lender scheduled the appraisal of the listing.
• Reviewing the inspection report with our agent and understanding what everything means.
• Figuring out who the escrow people are after emails out of the blue and being asked for dozens of pieces of personal information.

10+ calls

• Aligning, clarifying and reminding lender and agent teams to sync timelines.
• Asking my lender why they never told me about closing costs and who pays them.

60+ texts

• Agent asking if the lender has underwritten the loan instead of reaching out to them directly.
• Having our agent explain what earnest money is and why we need it ASAP.

30+ hours

• Lost sleep from frustration, anxiety, and stress.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Fire Insurance Delayed 🔥

30+ emails

Fire insurance was delayed because the only plans available are offered through the state. The log jam of pending insurance policies pushed our closing. We had to notify all parties and coordinate update emails.

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Finding a Property Manager 🛠️

5+ hours

• Researching managers and reviews on Google and typical fees for the area.

4+ calls

• Interviewing property managers.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Finding a CPA / Tax Advisor 🧮

16+ hours

• Searching for CPAs and researching reviews on Google.
• Looking at accounting software thinking I could try to DIY accounting and taxes.
• Researching depreciation, tax deductions, and forms realizing I absolutely can not DIY this.

7+ rejections

• Either no responses or rejections from CPAs not currently accepting new clients because they are so busy.

6+ referrals

• Tracking down referrals from family and friends that went nowhere.

2+ calls

• Interviewing CPAs.

10+ emails

• Sending info and docs to a CPA to get a price quote.

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Grand Totals 🤬

111+ hours

31+ calls

240+ emails

650+ texts

5+ in-person meetings

7+ rejections

6+ referrals

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Start your home buying journey with us instead!

Schedule a call with one of our home buying coordinators. It’s simple and painless… promise.

Nestment, Inc. does not guarantee and is in no way responsible for the accuracy of information provided in this blog post. All information is provided “AS IS” and with all faults. Data presented here may not reflect all real estate activity in the market.  While the information on this site is about legal and tax issues, it is not intended as legal or tax advice or as a substitute for the particularized advice of your own attorney and tax professional.

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