Step 4: Lets Find Your Dream Home

Yippee, you are excited and full of optimism. You’ve gotten pre-approved, your checklist printed out and have (hopefully) started to complete it. Now comes the most important step. Finding the right home.

In the home search, I find this as actually more of a process of elimination. By only using your needs and wants we can find the right home for you.

But - before we start, you need to make a list of your top 4-6 needs and a list of your top 4-6 wants.

Examples of needs are:

• 3 bedrooms

• In a certain school district/s

• Yard for the dog and room too garden (or not)

• Central AC

• Updated and move in ready

• These are the things you absolutely cannot live without. You won’t even look at the property unless it has every one of these items. Get it?

• Then, make a list of your wants.

Examples of wants are:

• Hardwood floors throughout

• Master bathroom with double sinks

• Updated kitchen with granite and stainless steel

• Wood burning fireplace

• These are the things you’d really like but can live without if needed

Once you’ve made your lists, send them to me. That way when you see a property you love with the kitchen of your dreams we can remind you that it doesn’t have a yard so we don’t waste your time seeing it.

Once that’s done, we’ll set you up for auto search on MLS. This means that each day you’ll receive an email with all of the new properties that have come on the market that day matching your criteria as well as any price changes which put homes in your budget that were previously over your budget.

When the email comes in I need you to:

Check the MLS email daily and review all of the properties we’ve sent you that day. Mark properties you want to see as Favorites. If you have any questions about a particular property, send me a quick email from the link and I will get you the information you need.

If there’s something you want to see, shoot me a quick text letting me know when you’re available and what you want to see. That way I can set up the showings. Remember, most properties require 24 to 48 hours notice for showings so it’s rare to be able to see a house or condo the same day. Also, properties are usually available to be seen Mon – Fri from 9 am – 7:30 pm and Saturday and Sunday from 10 am – 6:30 pm. Sometimes sellers will allow us to view a property outside of those hours, but it’s up to the individual seller.

Once I know when you’re available, I'll set up the showings and text you where we are meeting and when.

• Remember to wear comfortable slip-on shoes for showings as we’ll generally need to take them on and off at each property.

• I’ll bring printouts for each property so no need for you to bring anything other than snacks or drinks if you think you might get hungry.

• While you’re looking at the MLS feeds each day I’ll also be networking our contacts to find you homes before they go on the market

At this point there should be no need for you to continue to look on other sites such as Zillow, Trulia, etc. (please - please - please stop looking at Zillow!) as all of those properties should be showing up in your MLS feed. If one isn’t for some reason let us know so we can tweak the search parameters of your MLS feed.

Now on to the showings! Sometimes we find the right home on the first try and other times it takes awhile. My average is 6-10 homes until we find the right home for you!