Learning How To Read Home Listings To Match Your Needs Can Really Help

Category: Finance, Real Estate.

Sorting through classified ads, online real estate sites and even real estate listings on company web sites can be difficult.

Unless you intend to visit every possible listing, you have to weed out some possibilities to help guide your hunt for the perfect home. It s often hard to tell from an ad if the home you re reading about is the one of your dreams. Learning how to read home listings to match your needs can really help. You need to know what you want in a dream home before you can find one. The key to using listings to your advantage is to have a clearly defined idea of what you re looking for. The same can be said for a starter home or even a mid- stop point along the way to the dream home. Be realistic here.

Before you start pouring through the listings in just about any community in the world, you need to do a few things: ) The first place to start is to know where you want to live. If you re budget s a shoestring, don t pick the" best" neighborhood in the city. Once you have a neighborhood or several neighborhoods selected, you can move on. ) Now you need to set your budget. If you re moving to a location you re unfamiliar with, talk to real estate agents, check crime stats, research neighborhoods, school information and so on for different areas. What can you afford? Many banks and mortgage companies offer pre- qualification. Are you pre- qualified for a loan of a set amount?

This is a great way to ensure you search for only those homes you can afford to buy. How many bedrooms do you need? This can help ease disappointment and really guide a search, too. ) Specifics about a home. Bathrooms? List these down on a piece of paper. Do you require any special features such as a pool, eat- in- kitchen and so on?

Prioritize features based on must- haves and those you could live without. Read through the listings in the areas you re seeking to buy and jot down the homes that match your qualifications or come close. Now that you know where you want to live, how much you can spend and the kind of house you d like to have and the one you d love to have, those listings will be a whole lot easier to sort through. These are the homes you re likely to want to visit. Remember when you check out the homes for real to bring your want/ need list along with you. Get with your real estate agent or call the lister s agent to get started.

Try to find the home that matches your list most closely, but pay close attention as you walk through homes. Home listings can be a great resource for finding your ideal home, but in a lot of areas they can be so extensive they overwhelm potential buyers. Look for anything that may be a problem in the future and ask a lot of questions about the home and the neighborhood. The best way to make sure you get the home of your dreams, or close to it, is to know what you re looking for.