Shop on Your Timeline

After helping a lot of people through what you're going through right now, we've found a few strategies to make your life a bit easier.

✅ Start your search broad and then narrow

✅ The perfect house won't look perfect online

✅ Window shopping for real estate is allowed

✅ You don't have to get approved before you start

✅ Start your search broad and then narrow

Often times when I'm talking to buyers who are getting into the market, they're trying to find the perfect house. I've found this to be one of the worst ways to shop for a home.

Here is my advice. Start with a very broad or wide search. Start looking further away than you think you should, and raise and lower your price bracket. This may sound backwards, however you'd be surprised at how many people don't buy where they start looking.

When you broaden your search, it'll give you a better idea of all of the options that are available. Then you start to narrow the list by removing things that you've decided you don't like. Eventually, you'll be down to a very specific criteria that you're searching for.

✅ The perfect house won't look perfect online

Most Realtors won't tell you this, but most Realtors can be a bit lazy... You should be out looking at properties way before you're actually ready to buy.

You'll be able to narrow your home search, as mentioned above, much faster, if you get out and see some houses. The reason for this, is when you're scrolling through Zillow or SoCalHomesForSale.com, you are only looking at pictures of kitchens, bedrooms and so on. You're not getting a feeling for the neighborhood, the commute or anything else.

We always encourage our clients to get out and look sooner than later.

✅ Window shopping for real estate is allowed

Pictures of houses online are rarely exactly what they seem. Some listings will have professional photos that will make the house look better. Some listings will have the agent standing in the mirror because they didn't want to spend money to market the house.

We share with our clients that if you "kinda, sorta, maybe" like the house online, you should go tour it in person.

Go out and tour properties early on, with the goal of crossing things off your list. If you find out that you hate every house with stairs, then you can narrow your search to only homes without stairs. This will make the search much easier in the long run.

✅ You don't have to get approved before you start

A lot of Realtors will also tell you that the first step to buying a home is getting pre-approved. Again, LAZY. This is probably makes you feel like they don't want to waste their time if you can't qualify for the home.

The reality is, you wouldn't be out looking at houses if you didn't have an idea of what you can afford.

Now I do recommend that we get a ballpark idea, which could be as simple as figuring out what your comfort zone is for monthly payment and down payment. With this information we can get an idea of the price range to look in. Ideally, you talk to a lender and they give you a range based on a phone interview (no credit pull).

So what do you think? Are you ready to go window shopping?

PS - If you're getting closer to buying a home, maybe its time to do a Strategy Session. What do you think?