With award winning Vancouver Realtor Paul Toffoli, we're going through some details of the buying process for real estate in BC

Mark: Hi, it’s Mark Bossert from Top Local Lead Generation and we’re here with award winning realtor in Vancouver Paul Toffoli. How’re you doing today Paul?

Paul: I’m well Mark.

Mark: So Paul, I guess we’re going to talk about the real estate buying process in BC, specifically in Vancouver, I guess there’s not a ton of difference throughout the whole province, but I imagine that one of the really key things would be getting expert advice to walk you through a pretty complicated process. Is that right?

Paul: Yeah, it’s one of the things that I would advise people when you’re first starting out the process. We’re going to talk about this more in the upcoming weeks about the entirety of the process because it is a fairly complex process of buying property. One of the first steps that I recommend to people is you know what, get some expert advice. If you’re buying a car are you going to take it to a mechanic? If you’re investing your finances on the stock market you going to talk to professional. It’s all that much more important when you’re buying real estate to get expert advice because boy theres’s lots of things to be careful about. It’s a multi faceted project, I mean there’s a financial component, there’s construction components and then there are the laws and regulations about buying real estate, there’s a legal component if you’re talking about contracts. It’s complicated. So what I suggest to people is interview some realtors, talk to a couple people. If you want to talk to one, feel free to just talk to me. It makes sense to me to talk to a couple people and what I usually do with potentially new clients is we sit down over a coffee and we talk. I talk to people about my background, I talk to people about the process that we go through in the buying process. I lay the cards open on the table and say ask me anything you want, grill me on how I work, ask me the tough questions, how do I get paid, what do we look for when we’re buying real estate. There’s contract questions, there’s inspection questions etc etc. I’m very comfortable saying do this with one or two other realtors as well because you want to be working with somebody who’s a really comfortable fit for you. At the end of the day it can be a very enjoyable process, but it can also be a very intense process. You want to have a level of trust and comfort with the person you’re working with. That they’re going to give you solid advise, that it suits your needs and requirements because it’s not a cookie cutter world. Everybody’s different, everybody’s got different things that they need and you want to have a comfort level with the realtor you’re working with. The same goes with a mortgage broker. There’s lots of different financing options out there right now. There’s the big banks, there’s the credit unions, there’s private lenders. There are a plethora of options. Right now the interest rates are relatively, not relatively, they’re darn low and that may change in the next few years. So you want to have an understanding on what that will mean to you. What is your ability to change your mortgage from the form you may start with to another form, how’s it going to affect your credit rating - those are things you’re going to need advice from a mortgage broker. And again, it makes sense to me to talk to couple different people to get the information, get that comfort level and get an understanding. I have a mortgage broker that I have a strong relationship with and one of the things she says to new clients is, to go to their existing bank and see what the banks can offer them and then come back and have an informed discussion and just find out what all the different options are. 

So the first thing I recommend to people is talk to experts in the field so you get advice moving forward into what can be a really complex process.

Mark: I think that sums it up as far as what we wanted to discuss today. I think having been through it a few times now and had it been easy and incredibly scary and being able to trust the person who’s negotiating on your behalf, guiding you through the process for me was well, when I didn’t it was horrible and horrible in terms of I don’t ever what to buy another house kind of horrible and the second or third time was, well this is just really easy and thank God. All the gotchas were looked after and none of those times were with you Paul, because you’re just to darn far away!

Paul: That’s one of the things, it really is about getting a comfort level with the person you’re going to work with, having that trust because it really is about trust and on making sure you have somebody you’re working with that knows their stuff and has been through it more than once before. That’s how I seek out advise when I’m working in a field that I’m not familiar with and that’s how I recommend people proceed when working in my field of expertise.

Mark: Awesome Paul, thanks you. We’ve been talking with award winning realtor in Vancouver, Paul Toffoli. You can reach Paul at toffoli.ca or you can give them a call to set up that coffee 604-787-6963. Thanks Paul

Paul: Thanks Mark