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Children and Home Shopping Made Easy

By Tom Gilliam- RE/MAX Classic

Real Estate Agent with Re/Max Classic 314578

June 09, 2016 11:20 AM

Children and Home Shopping

Children, experts agree it’s a good thing to involve the children when a family makes the decision to buy a home. You may have mixed feelings about taking the kids house-hunting, however. (It’s hard enough for just two people to decide on a new home!) Here are a few pointers that may help:

Narrow The Field First

The kids don’t need to visit every potential house on the list. If possible, wait until you’ve selected two or three serious prospects before bringing the children along. In any case, limit your kid-accompanied tours to three houses or less per day.

TIP! For prime real estate pay close attention to the reputation of the schools in the area. Even if you don’t have children, schools that are held in higher esteem usually indicate a better neighborhood.

Provide Behavioral Guidelines

Remind the kids to treat the owners and their property with respect. Make sure the kids stay in the same room with you at all times and that they “keep their hands to themselves.”

TIP! When you are looking at buying a home look up the neighborhood for sex offenders. The police are in charge of keeping that list updated.

If the owners are present, your family members should also keep their thoughts about the house to themselves until after you leave the property. Making positive comments in the presence of the owners could work against you when negotiating the price, while negative comments could spark a hostile reaction, causing the owner to sell to another buyer.

Make The Kids Your Secretaries

TIP! To avoid bad surprises, find out everything you can about a neighborhood before you move in. Find out what kind of people lives there, and ask yourself if you could fit with them.

If they’re old enough, your children can each keep a log of the homes you look at, including detailed information about the house — location, size, types and numbers of rooms, etc. Have them describe they’re feelings about the house, too, particularly what they think it would be like to live there.

Locate The Nearest Playground

TIP! If you have kids and are looking at buying a house, try to include your children during the search process. So much of their life will be changing with the move and by including them in the search you will make the transition a little bit easier.

A post-tour trip to the park (or local mall, if you have teenagers) can be a great motivator for good behavior and a nice way to get to know the area. Walking the streets in the neighborhood will also give you and the kids a better feeling for the local lifestyle and whether there are other children the same age as yours in the area.

Offer Entertainment

TIP! To get the best value for your money, it is best to consider what other people may value in the surroundings that you may not need. For example, a good school district is not a necessity if you do not plan to have children or will move away before starting a family.

Bring along books or games to help your kids through the “I’m bored” stage. If you’ll be driving for extended periods, bring some audio books or favorite music.

Time Your Tours For Success

TIP! When buying a home, either to rent out or to live in, make sure to consider the quality of the local schools. Even if you don’t have school-aged children, a home in a bad school district is much harder to sell.

Plan to look at houses early in the day or just after (certainly not during) nap time. Be prepared with snack foods and drinks to keep energy levels up.

Let Them Know Their Input Counts.

TIP! If you plan on relocating your family to a new area and have children under the age of 18, perform a search on the National Sex Offender Public Registry. Realtors are not legally obligated to notify prospective buyers of sex offender information.

Although the final decision is yours, your children will feel better about the move if they know you value what they think about their potential new home and neighborhood.