If you’ve been reading my previous articles, you’ll know that before you get out to look at homes, you’ve got to do a few other important things: First, get with a lender and get pre-approved; Choose a Realtor to work for you also known as your Buyer’s Agent. Now you are ready to start seeing homes, but wait. First, you need to really establish with your agent what you really want and need in a home. You may have taken the time to give some of this information to your agent when you where interviewing him or her, but if not, make an appointment to sit down with your agent to discuss this.
At this consultation, be very open and forthcoming about yourself. Talk to the agent about your lifestyle: for example, are you a homebody who likes to stay at home and cook and work in the garden? Or do you love to entertain at home? Do you have a large family and need a huge dining area, or do you only entertain on a small scale with close friends? Do you have small children or pets that require a large fenced yard? Is your hobby to restore old cars so that you need a workshop or spare garage for such purposes?
Talk to your agent about how you like to communicate. Your level of comfort (as well as the agent’s) with technology will dictate some of this. Do you prefer a phone conversation to email or texting? Will you need physical printouts of each home or can the agent email them to you? Hopefully, if you are reading this blog, you are savvy enough to prefer to have the option to search for homes on your own on the agent’s website. I have a site entirely dedicated to a search for homes in Louisville, KY and surrounding areas at www.FindHomesInLouisville.com. Some of my clients prefer to go to my search site and run their own searches and save the listings so that I can go see what they like and get the appointments set up. It is an easy way for a client to communicate to me on their own time frame.
When I see the areas the client is looking in and the types of homes they are saving, it gives me a big clue about what they like. Additionally, I will then run a search through our Louisville Multiple Listing Service (MLS) where all the Realtors list homes for sale in Louisville. I often find something that my clients have overlooked or passed on. Usually, the reason is because of the photos (or lack thereof).
Some buyers find that they only need to view 4 or 5 homes and they are ready to make a decision. Others need to see 10 or 15 homes or more to feel they have exhausted every choice out there. I find that if my Buyer Clients have taken the time to sit with me and discuss exactly what they are looking for in a home, I can take them to just a few homes, get some feedback from them on those homes and then make the next couple of trips the most fruitful by being able to hone in on what they like. I find that other buyers will tell you what they want, but oftentimes they end up buying a home that didn’t meet much of the criteria they initially told me they wanted to follow. That's why I like to take them out and show them the flavor of a few different neighborhoods or house styles--sometimes they don't really know for sure what they like until they see it!
Sometimes if you are unfamiliar with a neighborhood, it is best to drive by a home and see what you think from that perspective, taking in the entire neighborhood. Don't nix a house just because you might not like something particular about it, say the landscaping. Many things can be adjusted to make a dramatic change to the curb appeal.
When you do settle on a list of homes to view, try not to let the sheer volume of homes overwhelm you. Maybe you are in town for a week and have to find a home so you can relocate to Louisville, and you are seeing 12 homes each day. Don't try to remember every house. Take the approach that you will keep a ranking of only the top 3 each day. So the first house you go to, regardless of what you think of it, will be your number 1. The next house you go see, if you like it better, becomes the new number 1 and the first house drops down to number 2 postion, and so on. If you use this approach all day long, you can dismiss the 9 homes that you would not choose to buy and only concentrate on your top 3. When you start the next day, after viewing the first home, you will either move it up into one of the top 3 spots or dismiss it. You only want to keep a top 3 at all times. You should not need any more than that because surely, you will make an offer on only 1 of them.
Another important thing is to try to not get caught up in looking at the listing sheet for each home. Just go in the home and look at it for face value. Pay attention to how you feel when you are in the home, in each room. If you like the way it feels and looks, you can find out the details of square footage, whether it has gas or electric heat, what year was it built, all those things that won't matter in the big scheme of things if you really like the house.
I think those last two paragraphs are the most key factors to keeping your search a little more stress-free. I think too often buyers get caught up in the numbers and stats about the house. Let your Realtor do the math for you. When you find the home you like, then run the numbers and see what an acceptable selling price would be. And let your agent do the negotiating for you!
Next Topic: Negotiating the Offer: My Best Strategy
You can search for homes in the Louisville KY area for free at my search site. If you have any questions about buying real estate in Louisville, KY, or about homes for sale in Oldham County, as well as the surrounding areas, feel free to contact me at 502-435-5524. I also have a useful tool to help you learn about past sales in your neighborhood called a Market Snapshot. Sign up for the Market Snapshot here.
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