-This is a transcript from Go Gaddis Radio to listen to the episode click here-> https://on.soundcloud.com/ni55n
For their sacrifice. Sacrifice, and for their service this Memorial Day. Thank you for your service. We remember all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. God bless all of them. Gone but never forgotten. Never forgotten, never forgotten. Welcome back to Go Gaddis Real Estate Radio in this segment.
What do you do if you cannot attend? A closing. If you're the seller or the buyer, what do you do if you cannot attend the closing in person? Is the closing on hold? Does it have to wait until you come back in town or until you're available? Also, downsizing, is it only people who get older who are interested in looking at this option, or are there more age more generations in the United States that are looking to downsize?
My name is Cleve Gaddis. You're listening to Go Gaddis Real Estate Radio, where we help listeners go from real estate novices to experts. So home selling and buying can be done. With total confidence and without all the worry that is so typical with life's biggest investments. We don't want you to learn anything at closing or after that you should have learned before.
And don't forget, we want to connect with you and I'd like to connect with you personally. Just go to go gadi radio.com. That's G O G A D D I S radio.com. You can ask questions, you can make comments. Uh, you can ask questions. We answer off air or on air. We are fine. Either way. You can push back or challenge things.
We've said you can share ideas with us, especially those ideas. You think would be helpful for other listeners, you can request your home be featured in our neighborhood spotlight, and you can subscribe to our podcast. It's real simple. We're available on every major podcasting platform, and we would love for you, and by the way, anybody you know to be a podcast subscriber, so you are a home seller or a home buyer, and you already have your closing date set for your home, but your job.
Uh, just scheduled a very important meeting out of town for the same day that you're supposed to close. Do you have to close before you leave? Do you have to close after you return from your trip? Do you have any other options? And if you were in that situation, would that cause anxiety for you? Well, in state of Georgia and in all other states as well, it is not necessarily a problem.
Now, if you're a buyer, you need to talk to your lender and see whether or not what I'm going to propose. To you is an option for your lender because a lender has to make sure you have good interest in the title, so they have good interest in the title. Uh, but as a home seller or a home buyer, you could have what is called a power of attorney prepared so that you, or let's just say I was the one who was.
Uh, going out of town for a business trip and I was going to give power of attorney to Tammy Slay, who many of you here on the radio show with me, uh, occasionally to go to the closing for me. Then I would appoint Tammy as my attorney. In fact, now you can't just go. To the many of you listening, probably have experience with a power of attorney, whether it's a financial power of attorney or a medical power of attorney, well, in Georgia, in order to get title insurance, which I'm recommending you as a buyer get.
And certainly if you have a loan, the lender's gonna require it anyway. The title insurance company is going to require a specific power of attorney, so it's not enough to say Tammy can sign for Cleave to purchase real estate. Uh, the power of attorney would say something like, Tammy Renee slay her full name, um, is appointed by Cleveland Marcus Gad is my full name to, to execute the transaction of this particular piece of.
Piece of property, uh, for this particular price or reference? This contract? It, it is specific to the powers that are involved and in the state of Georgia. Um, we, we electronically record. Documents, but we have to have originals of the documents. In other words, the attorney has to be able to see an original with Blue Ink signature so they can tell it is an original.
So if you are preparing for a closing and you finally realize that you're not going to be there, how should you handle that? Well, I would say first and foremost, tell your real estate. Agent and they should immediately notify the closing attorney. In, in most states in the country, uh, you close a real estate transaction with a title company.
Uh, in the state of Georgia, it's closing attorneys that are who are the only ones authorized to do real estate transactions. It's not totally true. Two individuals could do a real estate transaction between the two without involving an attorney. But if you have two. You know, unrelated parties and you've got representation and stuff like that, you have to have an attorney in, in the state of Georgia.
I'm assuming the law is still that way cuz that's the way it was years and years ago. And so you would want to let your real estate agent, who would let the closing attorney know that you need a power of attorney. They would be looking for the name of the person that, for example, I, as the seller or as the buyer, would be looking to give power of attorney two.
So they would be looking for Tammy's full name. They would be looking for a copy of her driver's license. They would want all that information from me, including a copy of my driver's license and send the closing attorney as everything is signed at closing. The closing attorney would, uh, actually, Uh, verify that this is the person who has been giving, um, has been appointed, my attorney, in fact, to sign all those documents for me.
And when you do a power of attorney, uh, it is required in the state of Georgia that that power of attorney, the specific. You know, three page document, let's call it that, that is recorded along with all of the documents that are signed under the power of attorney. So let's just say the recording charges for a normal closing would be $20 and I don't know, I don't remember what the specific amount is.
It could be that the recording charges are $40 or twice as much cuz you have twice as much paperwork being recorded. But that's because when the deed gets recorded, the power of attorney gets recorded with it. When the mortgage or the security deed that we call in Georgia gets recorded. The power of attorney gets recorded as with that as well.
So as soon as you think you might have a problem attending, closing, oh, by the way, I meant to tell you. Uh, if you were wondering is there an additional charge? Yes. In most cases, a closing attorney would charge a hundred and fifty, two hundred, two hundred $50. To prepare the power of attorney, you do not want to go to an office supply store and, and pick up a power of attorney and fill it out because it's gotta be a specific power of attorney.
And more than likely, the closing attorney who's handling the transaction is gonna want to prepare that. In fact, I would not have anybody else prepare it other than, uh, the company that is gonna transfer the title, which again, in Georgia is the closing attorney. So, if. You are marching toward a closing date and you realize you're not going to be able to attend.
Closing a power of attorney is the solution for you. You have to have someone you can trust to appoint as your attorney. In fact, it probably, in fact, I would say it definitely should not be your real estate agent. I would not want anybody signing documents for me. Who also would be paid as a result of that signature.
So I would try to find, you know, like Tammy, somebody who has, uh, only my interest at heart, or maybe one of my daughters, or maybe my sister or somebody that I could trust. I probably would also. Uh, as the buyer or the seller want to review those documents myself. So I would want to see what Tammy was signing for me the day before, just to make sure that I agreed with everything and that everything matched the terms of the agreement.
I would wanna make sure that I took as much care as I possibly could to make sure that no mistakes were included. If you've just joined us, you're listening to Go ga, US Real Estate Radio, right here on AM nine 20. The answer, we just finished a. Good discussion on, uh, how you could give power of attorney to someone in the state of Georgia to sign on your behalf as a, at a closing as a buyer or a seller.
And now we're gonna go into the subject of downsizing. If you're thinking about downsizing, but. You know, concerned that you haven't really thought about the entire process or, or concerned that you haven't even decided whether or not it is right for you. We got a listener question. We're a young couple.
We do not plan to have kids and wanna start traveling. Is now a good time to downsize Rev rather than waiting for retirement? And that's Rachel and Matt in Peachtree Corners. And I would say the answer to that question is yes. Uh, you know, downsizing has, has long been a popular option when homeowners reached retirement age or, or even my age.
I'm not retirement age, but I'm, I'm 50, I'll be 55 in June, and, and I'm looking to downsize and make my life more simple. Now, I, I actually didn't do that. I have a little bit more square footage. Above grade in my new town home that I did in my prior home. But there are plenty, plenty of other life changes that could make downsizing worthwhile homeowners who have experienced a change in their lives or no longer feel like their house fits their needs may benefit from downsizing.
And many, many younger people are also looking to downsize to save money on housing. What's interesting is, Uh, as inflation has made most things significantly more expensive, saving money where you can, it has a heck of a lot of potential, heck of a lot of appeal in today's world. So if you're thinking about ways to.
Uh, budget differently. It could be worthwhile to take your home into consideration when you downsize your home. In some cases, the actual cost of the home might not be significantly less because you might go from a lower interest rate to a higher interest rate. But, and I learned this several months ago when I was talking to a real estate agent from Denver, Colorado, and we talked about, you know, having her, having a hard time helping.
Sellers understand that sometimes even when you're going from a three and a quarter interest rate to a six and a quarter interest rate, sometimes that it still makes sense to do that. And she reminded me that, you know, when you downsize the house, you in many cases end up downsizing the bills that come with it.
Even if it's not your mortgage payment, it sometimes it's your energy cost or your property taxes or your maintenance requirements. And she was saying the property taxes had gotten so out of hand in their area that for somebody to go from a, you know, 1,000,002 house down to a $700,000 house, you know, their payment would be less, even if their interest rate was higher.
If, uh, which certainly makes sense. But when you combine the decreased HOA dues and the property and the insurance, Uh, the, uh, the, the property taxes and the insurance, that there were so many ways for people to, to save money. If you've been in your house, uh, a while, the odds are that you've already deployed a considerable amount of equity.
You've already developed, excuse me, a, a considerable amount of equity. And your home equity is really an asset you can use to help you buy another home that may better suit your needs. My second daughter, whose name is Kyla, actually came with me today before I came to do this radio show to take a look at the new town home I'm purchasing in Johns Creek.
And she says, dad, you're gonna like this better than where you've lived for the last 24 years. And I think she might be right cuz it might better suit my needs. Um, you certainly want to get a real estate professional to really guide you. Through the process, we would love it to be Modern Traditions Real Realty Group at UM Remax Center.
You can reach us by going to go gadi radio.com or by calling 7 7 0 4 9 7 0 0 0 0. You wanna be prepared to ask yourself a few questions. The original reasons I bought my current house still stand. Do I really need and want the space I have. Right now and what are my total housing expenses right now? Our suggestion is you ask all of those questions.
We're gonna take a quick break. When we come back in our neighborhood spotlight, we're featuring featuring Village at Deaton Creek, which is the 55 and older community. Also, we're gonna talk about what is a 55 and older community and the pros and cons of living in a 55 and older community. Stick with us.
We'll be back.