10 Steps to Successful House Hunts

It sounds like a great listing – in your price range – in a good neighborhood – with features you’re looking for.

First impressions mean a lot – but you find the bushes are overgrown, the front hallway is covered with tacky foil wallpaper, the kitchen cabinets are painted dark brown, the living room rug smells musty, and the hardwood floors have black water marks on them. Should you head back out the door?
Maybe; but to fully determine whether you should cross this house off of your list, you’ll need to gather more information, and perhaps look past the blemishes to get a full picture of this house’s potential.

“How do you do that?

Follow these 10 steps.

Keep them straight
Looking at a bunch of houses? With digital photography making it easy and inexpensive to record images, be sure to take a digital camera along, first taking a picture of the listing sheet so you can remember which pictures go with which home, and then key elements of each home.

Also, make a checklist before you visit the first house so that you can keep each of them straight. Here is a list of items you’ll want to include (rank each as either excellent, good, fair, needs repair soon, needs repair now).

Kitchen

Bathroom(s)

Roof

Windows

Furnace

Air conditioning

Floors (rate by each level of home)

Closet/storage space

Plumbing

Electrical (does it have 60, 100 or 200 amp service?)

Basement

Master bedroom

Siding

Garage

Then customize the list with your own ‘must haves,’ for example, fireplace, master bath, walk-in closet, two (or three) car garage, dining room, open floor plan, eat-in kitchen, screened-in porch, large (or small) yard. When narrowing down your home search, consider the following:

1. Start with emotion, but end with facts. Buying a home is an emotional process. You often find yourself trying to determine if this is where you want to spend the next 10, 20, or 30 years of your life (and perhaps raise a family). It’s OK if your initial impression is an emotional one. But because the purchase can be the largest you’ll ever make, it is essential that you gather all of the facts necessary to make an educated decision.

Thanks Wayne Davis for the article.


These are just a few of the steps I do with my clients to help them make a good choice on their new home.  I am looking forward to doing business with you.