House Hunting 101

House hunting is a very stressful thing. The most important thing to do is get a really good Realtor. Well, so far we haven’t done that. And we’ve had two of them. One would only show us homes that she wanted to see and would forget to meet us at our designated appointments. The next one, is a very nice person, but seems to be doing it to just have something to do to fill their time. Writing wrong addresses and putting email names instead of real names on legal papers does not seem appropriate.I did a lot of research about finding the right Realtor, and yet I still went with someone just because they seemed nice.

They say the average person finds their home in a few weeks. Well, we have been looking for over a month and have not seen very many homes. I know we must cut down our very broad area that we are searching in, but that is difficult. Every time I pick a place I want to see, it seems to have a problem or an offer. So far we have made one offer and it was overbid by someone else.I advise anyone looking for a home to educate themself and not depend upon the “professionals”.

I thought my Realtor would say, “hey, I found some homes that would be perfect for you”. Instead I give him a list of towns and he sends an automatic list daily to my email. Well, somedays I don’t get any. So I have two others sending me lists as well. I must sift through the criteria I want because I only get the price and town. No other criteria is filtered. I must check the crime rate, square footage and acreage. I must also make sure it has a basement, passed Title V and is not a Fannie Mae or HomePath house because I do not qualify for those. Then we drive by to make sure we like the area. And only then do we give the list to the Realtor who has the special golden key that gets us into the property.It is all so much work, that I think I deserve part of the 2.5-5% commission that my Realtor is getting. I think it is to pay for his gas when he brings us to these homes because I can’t seem to find anything else he is doing. We also will be getting a lawyer to check the documents at closing. So the only thing we need the Realtor for is his usefulness at getting keys.Hope this rant will open the eyes of some people looking for a home. The only thing we have going for us right now is, we are not selling, just buying.