Part 3 of a series on finding a new home

Good for you. You’ve done your homework, you’re sure that you are ready to buy a home and move, and you have a loan preapproval letter in your pocket. Finally, you’re ready to actually look at homes.

Where do you start? Sounds like a simple question, and not long ago you had two options. Grab the Sunday newspaper and start scanning the ads, or grab a phone book and call a real estate agent. 

Things are not so simple today, are they? Especially today, when there is a larger than usual inventory of homes available, the trick is finding the one that best meets your needs. And with the growth of the Internet and the opportunities to learn about what properties are for sale, you can quickly find yourself in information overload. Regardless of how you learn about homes for sale, research shows that you’ll almost certainly do better if you work with a Realtor® to help you wade through the mountains of possibilities and also the stacks of paperwork that are part of today’s real estate transactions.

So how do you start? Do the same thing you do when making a shopping list for groceries or the hardware store. Think of what you need, what you want, and what’s important to you. Put everything down, then think about priorities. If you want four bedrooms, three baths, a home office, an attached garage, on a half acre of land in a specific school district, which of these is the number one consideration. If you found a house in the right school district but it had no garage, would you still want it? Or if it had everything else but only three bedrooms, would that rule it out? 

It’s important to take the time to talk through the options with everyone involved – including spouse and children – so that you have a clear idea of what you are looking for. And don’t forget to think a few years down the road. If you have two toddlers sharing a room now, that will change in time, so plan ahead. Then, when you meet with your Realtor®, you will be able to say clearly, "This is what we’re looking for." Your real estate agent will take your needs and priorities and be able to narrow down the field so that you only spend time looking at homes that meet your wants and needs, and that you can afford.

One more hint: As you start to look at houses, take a printed copy of the home information with you. Your Realtor® can provide this, or you may be able to print a page from the Internet. Note your impressions of the house, things you especially like, and any questions. After you’ve seen a few homes, you may find that they start to run together in your mind, so it pays to make notes as you go.

Next time, we’ll talk about choosing that just right home for you. But for now, ready…set…go house hunting. And don’t forget to have fun!

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