Now that you have been pre-qualified for a home mortgage, found your realtor and identified your “must haves,” it’s time to go shopping.
This is the fun part of buying a new home but can also be very overwhelming. The more houses you look at, the more the houses begin to run together and before you know it, you can’t remember which house had that fantastic kitchen and which one had the leaky roof.
Some buyers will walk into a house and just know that it is the house for them. Others want to see everything on the market in their price range.
If you are a buyer who wants to see every house on the market, make sure to ask your realtor to give you a copy of the MLS information sheet for each house that you visit. Bring a pen and make notes on the information sheet of anything important that you don’t want to forget about the property.
Upon exiting the property assign a rating between 1 and 10 with 1 being the “Worst” and 10 being the “Best.” Write that number at the top of each MLS information sheet. If you are shopping with a spouse or significant other, make sure that they give their own rating as well. Communication is the key to make sure you are both going in the same direction.
Give the property a nickname so that when referring to it later your realtor and partner will know which house you are referring to. For example, if there are beautiful flowers in the yard you may choose the name “Garden House” or if there is a foul smell in the house you might call it “Smelly House.”
It sounds funny but it really works in helping everyone to remember a certain property. At the end of the day review your information sheets and any property that received a rating of 6 or less gets crumbled up and thrown away – never to be seen or spoken about again. Anything with a rating of 7 or more is in the running.
Review your notes with your partner to identify the best house for you and if need be, revisit the top three to see which house works best for you.
If you don’t find your home on the first day of shopping, don’t be discouraged. New houses come on the market every day. On the first day of shopping with your realtor make sure to communicate what you like and don’t like in each house that you visit so that they can get a better understanding of exactly what you are looking for. When that perfect house comes on the market your realtor will know it is the house for you.
Tracie Maler, PA, CRS, GRI, SRES is a Broker Associate at Keller Williams Realty, Elite Partners in Spring Hill, FL where she heads the Tracie Maler Group, a team of four dynamic individuals who are passionate about real estate and dedicated to their customers. Maler can be contacted at 352.848.5401 or via email at tmalerhomes@gmail.com.