Buying a Home in Iowa City: Step 3: Finding the Right Home for You
This is the third part in a series that gives a detailed look at how the home buying process works when you buy a home in the Iowa City area. Parts 1 and 2 dealt with getting pre-approved for a home loan and choosing the right area to live. Part 3 will tackle the process of finding the right home for you.
Now that you have a pretty good idea of what you feel comfortable spending on your new home and a rough idea of where you'd like it to be, it's time to decide what exactly you're looking for in a home.
Even if you love looking at homes, there's no fun in spending you time viewing homes that are of zero interest to you and in no way reflect your needs. That's just time consuming and frustrating.
Here are some of the questions I ask clients to help them narrow their options:
Number of bedrooms/bathrooms?
Is a garage a "must-have?" If yes, how many stalls?
Are children older or younger? In the case of younger children you'll probably want the bedrooms on one level. In the case of older, quite the opposite.
Are there any pets? Is a fenced-in yard a high priority?
A lot depends on your particular lifestyle and what's important to you. You may want the laundry on the main level, because you have difficulties with stairs, or a formal dining room, because you do a lot of entertaining. It would be difficult to cover all scenarios in one little post, but I'm sure you see what I'm trying to achieve with the questions. By figuring out what you really need will make for a much more productive experience when it comes to actually looking at homes.
There are two other characteristics that I'd like to touch on before moving on. The first is the style of home and the second is the age. These are both factors that may have already come up when thinking about an area to live. As I pointed out in my last post, if you're looking for new construction in downtown Iowa City, then it simply isn't there. On the other hand, there aren't too many turn of the century homes in Coralville or North Liberty.
So now that we have a game plan, we can go out and have some fun looking at homes. In my experience, if you do all your "leg work" up front, you probably won't need to look at too many homes before you find the right one. I don't want to put a number on it though. I've helped many buyers who have looked at less than 5 homes before making an offer and others who have looked at a lot more.
When we're out viewing homes I like to use what I call an "elimination process" to come up with the right home. When I visit homes with clients I ask them if it's a keeper or if we can kick it out of the running. By eliminating homes as we go, we naturally end up with a couple that make the cut and become viable options. Of course they're only viable until they get kicked off the list, but at some point in time we will have a winner!
So we have a winner. You've found the house you want to call home for the next few years and are ready to move onto the next part of the process of making an offer.
Buying a Home in Iowa City: For your reference: links to all steps in my 7 part series:
Step 1: getting pre-approved for a home loan
Step 2: choosing the right area to live
Step 3: Finding the Right Home
Step 4: Making an Offer
Step 5: Home Inspections and Repairs
Step 6: Preparing to Close on Your New Home
Step 7: You're Closing on Your New Home
If you're new to the home buying process - a first time buyer or maybe relocating to the Iowa City area - all this information may throw up more questions than answers...There are a couple of solutions for that. You can either leave me a comment and I'll respond to that, or you can contact me directly either by phone or email, whatever suits you best.
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