So Many Houses, How Do You Make It Easier ?

With so many homes on the market, buyers have more than a few homes to choose from.  The larger area you are looking in you may find it a bit overwhelming getting in to see them all, as well your agent will be calling you with much more in the way of updates on the homes.  This blog will help you make it through the process of finding the right home, and keeping it from being an overwhelming and sometimes confusing process.

Decide What Kind Of Sale You Want & Timeline ! 

• Even if you don't have a rush on your move, you should have a ideal timeline in which you want to compete your purchase.  This will help your agent narrow down homes by the type of sale and put them in an order which will allow you to know what homes will be quicker sales than others.  
• The type of sale is also important for what kind of representations you want the seller to provide.  Typically short sales and estate sales will not be willing to do any work or repairs to a home, verse a homeowner who normally will be willing to do repairs or treatments to the home.  

Set The Time Aside For Your Agent

• When your looking to set up private viewings of homes, your agent will normally need to give at least 24 hours notice to get into listings, but we will need another 24 hours to be able to get status updates and get those appointments confirmed.   This is something that is very important because you will not want to rush through the homes so your agent being able to schedule them with time in-between is very important.  Typically I always figure that we will be in the home for at least 20 minutes, but remember that their will need to be travel time as well.  
• When you are heading out with your agent you may not want to see too many in one day.  The reason why is because you will begin to forget what homes had what, as well as your true feeling for them.  After seeing anything more than 6 houses we find that buyers and agents alike begin to rush through them, although not on purpose and it is always best to not overwhelm yourself.  

Let Your Agent Do The Work 

• Trulia & Zillow are very informative websites but you should be utilizing a Buyers Agent.  As agents and brokers the information we are able to see on listings are not the same.  We are able to go thru listings and see if the home is a strictly cash deal , in some cases it might be sold with tenant still occupying, or simply temporarily off the market.  You will also see that those sites will have homes listed as "pre-foreclosure" which means that they will not have typical showing instructions because they are not currently listed they are based on foreclosure notice. Allowing your agent to pull the listings for you, not only will you get listings but they will be the kind you are looking for ! 
• You will be receiving hi-lite sheets from all homes, you will want to let your agent keep track of those that you did not like this way their is a record of them, and keep only the homes you liked.  I provide all of my buyers with copies and binder to keep all of the information we receive in, this also helps when it comes to placing offers.  

The best piece of advice I can give to any buyer who is thinking about buying a home is to unitize the experience of a Certified Buyer Representative and sign into a Buyer Broker Agreement.  There are many reasons why we recommend this to you which you can find the blog HERE.