Empowered Real Estate Decisions Start With Education.
Access evergreen guides, tax exemption strategies, and contract explanations designed to give you clarity without sales marketing fluff.
My Clients
2 guidesBuyer Guide
Your guide to buying a home with Lliliam Foster in Houston, Texas.
Your First Steps as a Homeowner
The ninety-day checklist I hand my clients at closing: locks, mailbox, change of address, utilities, license, Homestead, warranty, HOA and the printable list.
Buyer
10 guidesUnderstanding MUD Taxes in Greater Houston
Clear explanation of Municipal Utility Districts (MUDs), tax rates, and bond pay-down schedules across Harris and Montgomery Counties.
Texas Option Period vs. Financing Contingency
Crucial contract terms every buyer and seller must understand to protect earnest money and repair negotiations.
Moving to Houston
Why Houston has no zoning and what protects a neighborhood instead, the north and northwest area by area with their school districts, and every deadline you face when you land.
Your Credit, Before You Look at Houses
Where the score a lender actually sees comes from, the real FHA and conventional thresholds, what moves the number, and the calendar for the months before you buy.
The Types of Inspection, Explained
What the TREC general inspection covers and what it cannot, the eleven you order separately, and how to decide which ones the house in front of you is asking for.
Leaving the Rental
How much money it really takes —the 20% is a myth—, the Texas assistance programs almost nobody asks for, and the honest math on whether to rent one more year.
Buying New Construction
Why the builder’s contract is not a TREC form, what actually gets negotiated when the base price will not move, and the three inspections a new house still needs.
How an Agent Gets Paid
What changed in August 2024, the four ways compensation can be arranged —all of them negotiable— and the five lines of a representation agreement worth reading before you sign.
Choosing Your Agent
What you can verify yourself in ten minutes, the nine questions worth asking —including the uncomfortable one— and the signs that should make you keep looking.
From Contract to Closing
What happens in the thirty or forty days between your offer being accepted and the keys, the TREC deadlines that do not forgive, and the seven people suddenly working on your house.
Seller
5 guidesPre-Listing Home Preparation & Staging Checklist
High-ROI maintenance and cosmetic improvements to complete before listing your home for sale in Spring or The Woodlands.
Buying and Selling at Once
The three possible paths and who carries the risk in each, the TREC leaseback that keeps you in your house after closing, and the one thing you must do before you list.
What You Actually Keep
Every line that comes out between the sale price and your check, the three things Texas does differently —including why title quotes are a waste of time here— and what really moves the number.
Selling Next to New Construction
Why the builder will not cut his base price, the seven things your house has that a new build does not, and where the game is actually won.
Selling an Inherited House
What has to happen before an inherited house can be sold, the Texas paths that stop short of a long court case, and the five ways this sale differs from any other.
Homeowner
5 guidesHouston Homestead Tax Exemption Guide
Step-by-step instructions on filing your Texas Homestead Exemption to cap annual property tax valuation increases and save thousands.
Protesting Your Appraisal
What the April notice actually says, the three kinds of evidence that carry weight and the three that carry none, and the whole process without an attorney.
Your Home Insurance
The hole shaped like water that most policies have, how to read a wind and hail deductible that may be a percentage, and the state’s own tool for comparing companies.
Your House, Month by Month
The maintenance calendar written for Houston —the clay that moves, eight months of air conditioning, and the season— plus what to watch and when to call someone.
Hurricane Season
What to do in May while it is cheap, what still helps once there is a warning, and how to document and file a claim so a storm does not cost you twice.
Renter
1 guideRenting in Houston
What Chapter 92 of the Texas Property Code gives you on repairs and deposits, with its deadlines, and the hour on move-in day that decides whether you get your deposit back.
Investor
1 guideYour First Rental Property
The caps and exemptions you lose the day the house is not your residence, everything that sits between the rent and your profit, and the six-month test before you offer.
Page by Lliliam Foster, REALTOR® with Compass RE Texas, LLC, bilingual real estate advisor in Greater Houston.