Practical tips for your home purchase

This part of the process used to be casual. You'd tour homes with an agent, and that agent's pay was set by the listing side and posted right on the MLS. A major antitrust settlement involving the National Association of Realtors ended that.

Now, before an agent can show you a home — in person or on a live virtual tour — you have to sign a written buyer broker agreement first. Public open houses are the one exception. The agreement has to spell out exactly what your agent will be paid, as a real dollar figure or percentage; vague "whatever the seller happens to be offering" language isn't permitted anymore.

How that payment actually happens can take a few forms:

• You can pay your agent directly — flat fee, hourly, or a set percentage.
• You can ask the seller to cover it as a concession written into your offer.
• The seller can offer it up front on their own; it just can't be advertised on the MLS anymore.

In competitive price ranges and at the entry level, sellers very often still offer a strong buyer-agent commission, because declining to do so effectively shuts out every buyer who can't cover a down payment, closing costs, and a separate agent fee all at once. You also have more leverage in these agreements than most agents will volunteer — tour-only, non-exclusive, and cancellable versions all exist.

Choosing a loan officer on advertised rates alone is a mistake, because how quickly they respond and how flexible they are matters just as much. Test this early by asking for a few pre-approval letters at different hypothetical offer amounts and watching how quickly and cleanly they come back to you.

When you make an offer, your pre-approval letter should state exactly the amount you're offering rather than the maximum you qualify for. Handing a seller a letter approving you for far more than your offer quietly tells them you have room to go higher. A loan officer who can turn around an exact-figure letter on short notice, including on a weekend, is worth having on your side.

In the big master-planned communities you find all over St. Johns County — places like Nocatee and eTown — you'll run into a Community Development District (CDD). Misreading how these work is one of the most common and most expensive budgeting mistakes buyers make around here.

A CDD is a special-purpose local government authorized under Florida law that builds and maintains major infrastructure — roads, drainage, utilities, parks, and resort-style amenities. Instead of baking that cost into the sticker price, the developer borrows through tax-exempt bonds, and you repay your share through an annual assessment on your property tax bill. It has two parts:

• Bond / debt portion — repays the original construction loan, spread over decades. You can pay it off in a lump sum to make it go away.
• Operations and maintenance (O&M) — landscaping, amenity staff, pool chemicals, lighting, security. Never goes away.

Many buyers filter CDD communities out entirely, assuming "no CDD" is the cheaper option. It often isn't — a community without a CDD still has to build the same roads, drainage, and clubhouse. The developer simply finances it privately and buries the cost in dramatically higher HOA dues. Compare the combined annual carrying cost (CDD plus HOA) when weighing neighborhoods, and ask for the CDD bond's payoff schedule, since an older resale is already well into paying its bond down while new construction restarts that clock.

Online insurance estimates aren't worth much in a coastal, hurricane-exposed market like ours. Get a real quote on the actual house before you make an offer.

Flood zones tend to be the biggest factor. Inside a FEMA flood zone, any federally backed lender will require flood insurance on top of your regular homeowner's policy, and that premium can be substantial. A coastal zone subject to wave action carries a much higher flood premium than an inland zone.

Property taxes also shift the math from one county to the next. Two homes of the same value can carry meaningfully different annual tax bills depending on which county they sit in — sometimes even right across the line between Duval and St. Johns — so pull the actual rate for the specific address.

Listing photos and virtual tours are designed to flatter a property, and some of the most telling warning signs are things a camera can't capture. A mildew smell usually points to chronic moisture; damp carpet can be a sign of a leak underneath the slab. A sharp, almost ozone-like odor can indicate electrical arcing. Floors that visibly slope or doors that stick often suggest the house has settled.

Do your own quick once-over before you ever spend money on a professional. Look under sink cabinets for water stains, look at any exposed plumbing, and note the brand and age of the electrical panel. Homes built before 1980 deserve extra caution — asbestos, lead paint, and aging cast iron pipes are all real risks.

Almost every home sale in Florida runs on one of two standard forms, both written jointly by Florida Realtors and the Florida Bar — the FAR/BAR contracts. They look nearly identical, but they handle repairs and your right to walk away in opposite ways.

The Standard contract obligates the seller to make and pay for repairs whenever the home fails to meet certain functional standards during the inspection. Section 9(a) sets the ceiling on the seller's repair obligation across three categories — general repairs, termite treatment, and closing out open permits. If the blanks are left empty, the contract auto-caps the seller at a set percentage of the purchase price in each category. Once the seller agrees, you mostly lose your ability to cancel.

The As-Is contract strips all of that out. The seller isn't obligated to fix a thing — but during the inspection period (often a week or two), you're free to cancel for any reason at all, or for no reason, and walk away with your full earnest money deposit. You can still take findings back to the seller and negotiate a price reduction, credit, or repairs, knowing you have a clean way out if they refuse to budge.

A strong offer is usually a clean one — light on extra contingencies and small demands. Asking the seller to throw in a brand-new survey, prepay HOA document fees, or take care of minor cosmetic fixes adds friction. A seller comparing several similar offers tends to pass over the one with the most strings attached.

In a competitive situation, a short personal note (sometimes with a photo) can make a real difference between two otherwise identical offers. And the day of the week you submit matters more than people expect — get your offer in on a Monday rather than late on a Friday, because if your contract goes firm on a Friday night, you've burned two days of a tight inspection window before Monday even arrives.

For any home built before PVC piping became the standard in the 1980s, a sewer scope really isn't optional. A lot of older Jacksonville neighborhoods — including Springfield, Riverside, and San Marco — run cast iron pipe from the house out to the city main. Cast iron tends to fail in two ways: rust and scaling that gradually corrodes and crusts over the inside of the pipe, and root intrusion as the pipe cracks and nearby tree roots find their way to the water inside.

The scope itself is simple and doesn't damage anything — a waterproof camera goes in through the cleanout and sends back live video. Replacing a collapsed main line means tearing up landscaping, driveways, and sometimes the foundation, with bills easily running into the tens of thousands.

Stucco is a common failure point in our humid, storm-battered climate. There are two basic types: traditional hardcoat (cement-based) and EIFS (synthetic). The synthetic kind is efficient and flexible but has a long history of trapping moisture behind the wall when flashing or weather barriers around windows and doors were installed poorly.

A generalist inspector can really only confirm that a crack exists. A stucco specialist brings infrared thermography to see hidden moisture behind intact wall, and the probe method to measure actual moisture content in the framing and pull core samples confirming how many coats were applied and whether the weather barrier was installed at all.

In Florida, once a home reaches a certain age, carriers almost always require a 4-Point Inspection before they'll write a policy. It's a risk check on four systems: roof, electrical, plumbing, HVAC. If any one fails — degraded cast iron plumbing, a recalled panel like Federal Pacific or Zinsco, or a roof at end of life — the carrier denies coverage. No insurance, no loan.

At the same time, pay for a Wind Mitigation Inspection. Florida law requires insurers to discount premiums for verified wind-resistant features. The inspector looks at roof shape (hip vs. gable), how the roof deck is nailed down, hurricane clips, secondary water barriers, and impact glass or shutters.

Not at all. A conventional loan can be had for a low single-digit percentage down with solid credit. FHA asks for a little more and is more forgiving of thinner credit. Eligible military can use a VA loan with nothing down, and USDA loans on qualifying rural and semi-rural areas can do the same. Confirm minimums with your loan officer when you apply.

Quite a few — often as forgivable grants, "silent second" mortgages with no monthly payment, or zero-interest loans paid back only when you sell or refinance. The state runs assistance for first-time, income-qualified buyers in community-serving professions (first responders, teachers, healthcare, active military and veterans), and many individual cities run their own programs for buyers within city limits. Most count you as a first-time buyer if you simply haven't owned a primary residence in the past few years.

Risky. An automated underwriting system might still approve it if you carry no other debt, but it leaves you with no margin for error. When the HVAC dies a year or two in, or the roof springs a leak, there's nothing left over to absorb it — that's how people slide into credit card debt. Leave yourself breathing room.

No need to panic — a low appraisal hands the leverage to you. Your lender won't fund above the appraised value, and the seller knows the next buyer's appraiser will pull the same comps and arrive at the same number. That reality usually brings them back to a workable price.