Home Shopping-Buying in Maple Valley PT 2

In a previous post, I addressed the “getting ready” phase of  home buying, outlining the steps which should be taken prior to actually looking at homes as well as the process I go through with buyers who would like to have me represent them in the purchase of their greater Maple Valley area home.  

Once you’re committed and your preapproval is in hand, it’s time to go shopping!

The internet has altered the Home shopping experience tremendously.  In the past, I would have shown you many more homes than I would now, because you’ll probably have eliminated many and zero-ed in on a few “favorites”. 

Typically I plan to show no more than 8 homes in one outing unless there is a real constraint on time; a client in town only for the weekend, or someone who must be in their new home by the end of the month. The reason I don’t prefer to show more than that is because after awhile they all begin to blend together.  Was it house # 2 or 10 that had that waterfall in the backyard? The pink kitchen of house number 4 gets filed in the memory of house number 8….and even though I can gently remind you which home had which features, it becomes overwhelming and most people start to shut down.

So we arrive at the first house and what do I do?  Well I guarantee you I don’t fling open the doors and say “Now this is the Living Room” and “This is the Bathroom” like TV real estate agents seem to enjoy doing. I prefer to let me clients take the house in at their own pace, and move through the rooms as they would like to….want to go to the garage first?

Fine by me!

The house is yours to explore and imagine as your own. 

One thing I will do however, is point out features which you may not be aware of, or offer comparisons between this home and the last to help you decide whether this house would work for you or not. For instance, “This home has the 4″ baseboards whereas the last home had 2″, or pointing out a new furnace or larger than average hot water heater. If you told me you wanted a big backyard, I will ask you how you feel about the yard of the home we’re in…afterall, “big” is a subjective term and I need to see what you consider big.  If you begin to veer away from what you told me you really wanted in your next home (remember our “getting ready” meeting?), then I will remind you about that…”This is a great house, but remember you said that you absolutely had to have 4 bedrooms upstairs? Are you sure you would be willing to give that up?” You should make that decision without being swept up in the emotion of being in the house at that time, and that’s my job-to remind you of those things throughout the process.

Home shopping is a good time and my clients and I usually have alot of fun along the way. As we go through the homes they will inevitably get tagged with a nick-name. “The foofy house” (lots of lace curtains and dolls and doiles), “the orange house” or the “stinky house”.  The list of nicknames I’ve heard over the yeas could go on forever and some of them are pretty darn hysterical!

After viewing each home, we will usually put it in one of two categories-”forget about it” or “it’s a possibility”. Every now and they you’ll walk into a home and just know right away that it’s the right one. But sometimes the decision is a little harder to make. What I tell my clients is if you keep looking at more houses and are using another house by which to judge them all, then you’ve probably already made your choice.

My role in the home shopping process is not to sell you a house. It is to help you gather as much information as you need in order to make an educated decision about your financial investment.  And if we have some fun along the way….that’s ok too.

 

Copyright 2008, All Rights Reserved Colleen Fischesser

Part 3 in the Buying in Maple Valley series will be on Negotiating Your Offer