What First Time Home Buyers Can Do When Visiting Future Homes

You are a home buyer for the first time, and you’ve been through decision-making and loan pre-qualification processes. You know the type of home you can afford and what you need in your home and have selected an agent to assist you to find it. Then, you are almost ready to start the most interesting and entertaining part of your home hunting process – checking out your potential homes. Before you jump on the ride, you have to prepare how you should go about it. If you don’t prepare it well, it could turn out to be a disaster filled with disappointment and exhaustion.

Your agent might already have emailed you property listings that meet your criteria of buying a home. However, you might also want to find properties on the web. While you might see the properties that your agent already emailed to you, you can also see what any other properties available in the local market. Then you choose the properties that you like to check out and call your agent to schedule for showing.

Some first time home buyers may think checking out properties is the same as going to zoo. All they take with them are their car key and purse. While it is fine, you can better prepare for your visit. So that, you won’t waste time and energy, and be more effective in hunting for a right home.

Here are some tips for you when you are checking out your potential properties. First of all, take the followings with you:

• Clipboard
• Home features comparison chart
• Pen
• Notepad
• Measurement tape
• Digital camera
• Flashlight

Don’t check out more than six properties per day. Otherwise, instead of a fun thing to do, checking out properties becomes boring and confusing. When you are being at a property, take a lot of photos to help recalling your memory later. However, merely taking photos without organizing it can do no good to you.

For each property, start with taking photos of the street number, the front view and the front entrance. Then, take minimum one picture of the kitchen, living room, family room, each bedroom, bathroom, hallway and stairway. You may also take photos of any details, such as granite counter, hardwood floor, vault ceiling and walk-in closet, etc. After viewing the interior, you should start taking photos of the backyard and the rear view of the property.

After that, you might think you are done. No, you haven’t done yet! You also should take photos of any defects and damages that may affect your desirability of the property. Pay attention to the areas under the kitchen sink, around toilet bowl and bath tub, gutter and garage walls, etc. Those areas are easy to get damages from the water. To take photos of defects and damages is particularly important when you are buying foreclosed houses as there will be very few property disclosures from the seller.

When you leave the property, you might also want to take photos of the street and the neighborhood. Don’t overlook, you are not just purchasing the property, and you are also buying the neighborhood. Make sure you are comfortable with the living environment and feel safe walking down the street.

When you visit the next property, you take photos in the same sequence. Thus, when you download and review the photos on Sunday morning at your kitchen table, you recognize all the photos belong to a same property after a street number.

Then now you might ask a picture worth a thousand words why I need to bring the notepad, features comparison chart and pen. The notepad is for writing down the impression you may have on the property that picture cannot tell. The features comparison chart is for writing down the features and conditions of the six properties in a table format that is easy to reference and compliments to the photos. It can help you focus to make a more accurate decision.

Some properties might not have enough lighting, especially at the basement and storage areas or vacant properties. It is always helpful to keep a flashlight handy. Lastly, you might have a favorite oversize dining table and want to make sure your new home has enough space for it. It would be a disappointment to realize you could only keep your dining table in the garage when you move in your new home. Apparently, that is why you should bring the measurement tape. Thus, measure everything that might affect your moving plan.

Last but not the least to mention that if you are a first time home buyer applying for down-payment assistance program, you should also pay attention to any non-permitted conversion on the property. Normally, down payment assistance would not be granted on those houses with non-permitted construction.

Always be prepared, organized and focused when checking out your potential properties can save you a lot of time, energy and frustration, and make it a truly enjoyable home buying process.

For more information on First-time Home Buyer, Down Payment Assistance From The Government and Buying Foreclosed Houses, please visit us at RealEstateNotebook.net