Expert tips to buying a house

HGTV ‘Property Virgins’ host Egypt Sherrod shares her top tips to buying a house

Buying a house? Egypt shares tips to managing the paperwork at closing, what happened when she bought her first home, and the personal dynamics of buying a home with your spouse.

Mark:            You’re back inside MyFixitUpLife with my wife, Theresa.

Theresa:            And my husband, Mark.

Mark:           And we are talking about buying, selling, and we’re going international, because the biggest piece of real estate in the world, of course.

Theresa:            What’s that?

Mark:            Pyramids.

Theresa:            You’re going to buy a pyramid?

Mark:            No. But we are going to talk to Egypt Sherrod from HGTV’s Property Virgins.

Theresa:            Yes, we are. And I’m just so nervous that you want to buy a pyramid.

Mark:            Who wouldn’t want to buy a pyramid?

Theresa:            I don’t.  Where would we put it?

Mark:            Well, we’d have to get a small one.

Theresa:            Okay. All right.

Mark:            Egypt Sherrod from HGTV’s Property Virgins, welcome to MyFixitUpLife, and do you hear these kinds of bizarre conversations all the time or what?

Egypt:            Pyramids, not quite. Maybe just not in this region. But I hear some pretty bizarre conversations.  Hi, guys.

Theresa:            Well, I’m so glad that that we’re talking to you, because you host Property Virgins on HGTV, and you have a really cool website, Egypt Said So, and you’re a pop culture expert, and I’m so curious about people aren’t asking you about pyramids, but are there some whackadoo things that you’re hearing about when people are on Property Virgins, or just looking for buying a new house? Like they want something that is totally just unreasonable?

Egypt:            I mean I think it’s just people going in with unrealistic expectations. So, for instance, we’re doing the new season of Property Virgins right now, and I don’t want to ever put anybody under the bus, but I’m working with a young lady who is expecting a mansion, because that’s what she grew up in. And she’s moving out of her parents’ house, but she has a budget of two hundred thousand dollars.  And she’s expecting eight thousand square feet, and I think that’s unrealistic. You can’t even get that in a pyramid.

Theresa:            Oh, my goodness. I see that a lot when I’m watching Property Virgins, and it seems like when kids are launching from their parents’ nest, and they have that expectation where they think they’re going to be moving into their parents’ house.

Egypt:            Well, I think it’s part of the learning curve when you first get out into the market. There’s a lot of things that you have to learn.  They don’t know what an inspection is. They don’t understand that a due diligence period is. They don’t necessarily understand the importance of taxes, and the fact that you have to work that into what your monthly payment is going to be, in addition to your mortgage. So they definitely don’t understand how far, or how far their money won’t take them. How far it will or how far it won’t take them, until they get out and actually see what they can get for their budget.

So that’s something that happens very common. I’m used to it. It never ceases to make me chuckle inside, and I always try to find creative ways to break the hard news to them that, I’m sorry, but you’re not going to get a ten thousand square foot mansion for five dollars.  It’s not going to happen.

Theresa:            I wish you could.

Mark:            I like you more just for saying that. I already liked you. Now I like you more just for saying that. Fantastic.

Egypt:            Thank you.

Theresa:            Well, I want to know, when you were looking into buying your first house, what kinds of things were you looking for, and can you share any sort of confusion, mistakes, or surprises that you learned along the way?

Egypt:            I was just about twenty-three years old when I bought my first property, and it was a tough love experience for me, because I had to learn that even though my eyes were big and I wanted everything, that I had to be realistic, and get only what my budget could afford me. And that even though I didn’t have bad credit, not having enough credit sometimes works against you. And even though I thought I looked good financially, the bank might have thought something a little different.

And so that experience taught me a lot about real estate, because I couldn’t just jump out of the box and buy a property. I had to wait a couple months, until I got some things together. And so for me I wanted that experience for everybody.  So I do financial and home buyer seminars all the time to try and teach people how to get their financial profile together, so that when they’re ready to buy a house, six months to a year, there are no surprises. You know what to expect, and you feel like you’re a pro at it, even though you haven’t bought a house.

Mark:           Well, that is an awesome story. I love that.

Theresa:            Yes. And fantastic advice, too. And I can see how you are the host of Property Virgins, and not on Property Virgins.

Mark:            Yeah. Not a guest on Property Virgins.

Egypt:            You guys are funny. You’re too cute.

Mark:            But from the personality side of things, do you see certain traits in people that are warning signs that buying a house is going to be an uphill battle. Like it doesn’t matter even if they’re not financially stable, maybe someone makes a ton of cash, but you can just smell it from a mile away they’re going to have a tough time.

Egypt:            When I hear someone who has not sat down and gotten pre-qualified yet, that’s the first step. You need to sit down with an expert, a bank, a mortgage consultant. Sit down with someone. Let them go over your financial profile, and tell you what you can afford. If you’ve not done that, then you have no business looking at houses yet, because you truly don’t know what you can afford. And that’s usually a sign for me. If you’re telling me, yeah, I’m going to do that in three weeks. I just figured I’d find the house first. And I’m saying, wait, you’re working backwards. We need to spin this thing around.

Another sign is usually when I’m dealing with couples. It’s fun. It’s exciting, but it’s always an experience, like a roller coaster ride, because he wants one thing, and she wants something else, and they’ve not yet gotten on the same page. But you guys don’t know anything about that, do you?

Theresa:            No.

  Egypt:            Because you always agree, don’t you?

Theresa:            Yes. Don’t we, honey?

Mark:           Page four, I always agree no matter what I think. Oh, wait, page five, I don’t think that much anymore.

Theresa:            Yeah. Some people get like a pre-nup for finances. It’s a good idea to get one of those for having those, yes, honey, that sounds like a good idea.

Egypt:            You know what I’m learning now? Mark already knows. Happy wife, happy life. I can tell.

Theresa:            That is true. Right, dear?

Mark:            We try our best. I really do love my wife, so it’s kind of fun to be able to build stuff together.

Theresa:            Well, the one thing that brings to my mind the first time I bought a house, was closing. And I saw that you recently gave a talk about what to expect at closing.

Egypt:            Yes.

Theresa:            And that is so overwhelming. Like you just start signing your name and it doesn’t ever end, and the amount of paper and everything is just really … it’s just overwhelming.

Egypt:            But you know what I recommend? I, also, tell my Property Virgins, in advance, get a copy, get disclosure of all your closing documents from your attorney, so that you have a few days to review what you’re going to sign. That way at the closing table it should be a breeze, because when they tell you what each document is, you already understand what it is. You’ve been through it. They’ve answered all your questions in advance.

I think when it gets scary is if you have no true education on what happens at closing. If you don’t understand what title insurance is, and then you see this big dollar amount. But if you have an agent and attorney that are worth their weight, they will give you a good faith estimate in advance. They will break down what to expect at the closing table, and things shouldn’t be as scary. Just bring a pen that won’t run out of ink.

I remember … as I was telling you, I bought my first house when I was very young, so my mom came with me. I was only twenty-three years old. She wanted to make sure I was doing everything right, and I just remember the experience of getting the keys in my hand when I was done. And I don’t know if you remember when you got your first property. You get the keys in your hand. Immediately you drive over, you open the door, and you scream into an empty house, like I own this. This is mine. I kissed the hardwood floors. It’s like you own a piece of the Earth.

So that’s such a fulfilling experience in the end.

Mark:            Well, that raises another really good question, or thing I’m interested in, that you see on Property Virgins and HGTV, is do you see parents get involved who are overbearing, under bearing, helpful, not helpful, but are in the way?

Egypt:            Yes, yes. We do often see that, and I’ve had an episode that you will get an opportunity to see on one of the upcoming seasons, where unfortunately we had a new couple. They were recently engaged, and by the end of their home search, not only did they not buy a house, but they broke up.

Theresa:            No.

Egypt:            Because they … what he got to realize in the home search is that mom would always be a part of the equation, and unfortunately until his soon-to-be-wife grew up and knew how to tell mom I’m an adult, and we’re going to make our own decisions, that he would pretty much be living by her mother’s rules. And hopefully they work it out and they’re back together now.  We got to check in on them and see, but they broke up, and didn’t get a house on the episode.

Theresa:            That is so sad.

Mark:            Talk about tough love though. Egypt Sherrod making it happen on HGTV’s Property Virgins. Follow her on twitter at Egypt Said So. Check her out on Facebook at Egypt Sherrod. And check us out after the break. We’ll be back with more of MyFixitUpLife.

For more tips on buying a house, click here.

MyFixitUpLife

Mark & Theresa created this honest and personal guide about home improvement to share the tips, techniques, and trends that help you make smart decisions about updating and personalizing your home.

See Full Bio