The Story

It was August of 2002, and I found myself beginning my journey of purchasing my first home in the New Hyde Park area. I teamed up with an agent and began my search when one day, a friend referred me to a “For Sale By Owner” advertisement he came across in the local paper. I took a leap of faith and made arrangements to view the home. I ended up falling in love with the house and making an offer the same day. After some time of the usual back and forth negotiations, a price was finally agreed upon. All that was left was finalizing the process with the attorney, making the down payment, and placing my name on the dotted line.

Once the contract was fully executed (thats when a buyer and seller have both signed the contract), I came to a realization that I had completely forgotten to conduct an inspection of the house with an engineer. Needless to say, my paranoia kicked in and I scrambled to contact my attorney to see if a last minute inspection could be done. Arrangements were made but we were informed we would have to take the house as is regardless of its condition. I moved forward with the inspection just to gain some peace of mind in hopes that the house was not on the verge of collapse. The seller cooperated with the inspection and after all was said and done, there were no major issues found with the house besides a few broken bathroom tiles with hairline cracks. I made a small fuss about the tiles to my attorney who quickly brought me back to reality. “Robin, you are not going to buy a house based on a few broken bathroom tiles?” Thankfully, I can look back now and realize how irrational my thought process was and to this day I have yet to replace those tiles.

I’m sharing this short story of my experience buying my first home to demonstrate in a small way how nerve racking an experience like this can be. Taking things into my own hands, I realized how helpful an agent could’ve been in the whole process. If I could walk things back, I would’ve allowed that agent I first started off with to be more involved in the process to ensure I had all angles covered in the buying of my first home. I ended up calling that agent and apologizing for not getting her involved and excluding her from the process. The whole experience led me to become more interested in the home buying/selling process, eventually leading me to obtaining my Real Estate License in February of 2003.

Fast forward to the present day, I wish I would’ve known half of what I know today before beginning the process of buying a home. My desire as an agent is to make sure no one makes the same mistakes that I made when purchasing my first home. Although things worked out fine for me in the end, it could have gone much worse. I will do all that is in my power to make your home buying/selling experience a positive one. Whether it be around the block or around the world, let me know how myself or any one of my associates in the fastest growing network in real estate can help! Good luck and God Bless!