Recent statistics indicate that 80% of all home buyers use the internet to find their next home.
I recently had an experience with a prospective buyer that taught me much about the role of the internet in buying a home in Boise.
This buyer was from Southern California, had a lot of free time, and thought the internet was her best friend when it came to figuring out the Boise, Idaho real estate market.
It all began last May 27th when she registered to view listings on my website www.BoiseReal.com.
I promptly replied and we began our 3½ month online relationship as I answered literally hundreds of questions to help her understand the Boise, Idaho real estate market.
I educated her on areas, commute times, shopping, schools, subdivisions, builders, the home buying process in Boise, financing, sun exposures, groundwater table issues, home inspections, escrow processing, earnest money, etc.
I even gave her the phone numbers for local movers who could help unload her U-Haul truck when she moved here.
She had never been here, didn’t know the area, and she was drilling down into the MLS data far deeper than most real estate agents ever do.
She researched every home on the market, down to and including the current price, past prices, days on market, and virtually (no pun intended) every little detail about every one of the hundreds of homes between $300-400k.
She sometimes e-mailed me with daily lists of 20 MLS numbers, asking me to research them and provide my input despite not knowing where they were, what the neighborhoods were like, etc.
I helped her get pre-approved for her financing, reviewed more than 200 MLS listings for her, and personally previewed more than 75 homes to be well-prepared for her buying trip a couple of weeks ago.
Amazingly, she actually became the only client in my 35 years of real estate whose data required TWO file folders to hold all of it!
Then, four days prior to her scheduled buying trip, after exchanging 565 e-mails answering all of her questions, she abruptly e-mailed me and said “I need to find an agent who better understands my needs”.
To this day, I do not understand what happened.
I thought we had become good friends throughout the process, I know I was honest and forthcoming with her, and did my best to educate her on all aspects of buying a home in the Boise area.
So, what did I learn from this?
- First, that it’s impossible for someone who lives out of area, and who has never been here, to figure out which home to buy over the internet.
- Second, buying a home in the Boise, Idaho requires that you have a skilled, knowledgeable, experienced agent to guide you through the home buying process. The internet doesn’t know all about schools, shopping, subdivision amenities, builder reputation, construction quality, groundwater tables, commute times, traffic patterns, etc.
- Third, I will still be open and forthcoming in helping my buyer clients understand the Boise real estate market, but I will never again exchange 565 e-mails with someone who has never been here.
You have to come to Boise to understand what’s here; you can’t buy a home on the internet.
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