Looking and Evaluating Houses

Listen After you decide on what agent to use, you can start visiting houses. Tell your agent what your price range is and what area you want to live in. They have access to MLS, which is a database of houses on the market. They will find many houses for you to look at.

Listen The primary factor in deciding on a house is if you like it. When you walk through the house, you will either like it or not. But I want you to keep several things in mind when buying a house. First, ask yourself how long you are going to live in the house. If you plan on living there for more than 10 years, then you don’t have to consider some things I am going to mention next. But regardless of how long you are going to live there, if you have kids, make sure you live in an area with a good school district. I believe in education and I want your kids to have the best education available.

Listen If you are not sure how long you are going to live in the house you are going to buy, then you have to buy a house with a mindset of selling it in the near future. That means you have to buy a house that other people are willing to buy. Simply, when I want to sell my house, will it be easy to sell. Some key factors are house size, quality, lot size, back yard size, how close it is to the free way, and the quality of houses in the same neighborhood.

Listen Don’t buy a house that nobody wants to buy. It is probably cheap because nobody wants to buy it. When you want to sell, then you will probably have a hard time selling it, which will ultimately cause a lot of headache and stress.

Listen Time frame is also important. Fall and winter are the slowest time in the real estate market. People are busy planning for the holiday season and are not shopping for houses. Spring and summer is a time period when a lot of people are buying houses. That means if you are ever selling a house, don’t sell in the fall or winter seasons.

Listen After you find a house you like, you need to make an offer. We’ll cover this in the next lesson.