Home Buying Strategies

Every good real estate agent has some sort of a property-finding checklist they use to help narrow down your home search. You’ll be asked about things like price range, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, size of yard, garage or no, shop, rec room, 1 story or 2, etc. The answers to these questions can be plugged into the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and will produce a list of possible matches for you.

But finding your dream home may take a little outside the box creative thinking. You see, these real estate questionnaires are a good place to start, but they rarely give your agent a true sense of what it is you’re REALLY looking for. Just what is your true “hot button” when it comes to your dream home?

Close Your Eyes

When you close your eyes and picture your next home, what is it that you see? I’m guessing it’s not “3 bedrooms, 2 ½ baths”. If that’s it, then your real estate agent’s MLS search will produce 100’s of possibilities – so just pick the cheapest one. But in reality, you have some secret wishes or some vision of what the home looks like. These are the things your agent should know before you spend hours and hours driving from home to home with the “I’ll know it when I see it” mentality.

Now, there is nothing wrong with looking at lots of different houses – this will actually give you a good idea of prices and values and will help you recognize a good bargain when you see one – but determining your top priorities – your “non-negotiables” – before you begin your search will speed up the overall process and help you find that dream home before someone else does.

Keep The Time Factor In Mind

And keep in mind the factor of “Time” when determining these non-negotiables. For example, you may be desiring a larger home (a very common reason for looking for a new home). Maybe you plan on having more children, so you’ve determined that you’ll eventually need a 4 bedroom, 3 bath home. Terrific!

But put the “time” factor into the equation. Do you need 4 bedrooms “right now”? Or will you need 4 bedrooms sometime in the next 3-5 years? If you don’t need them now, you have a couple of strategies to consider:

1. Buy a home now that has enough square-footage and/or lot size that it could be easily converted to 4 bedrooms in the future (using the increase in equity during the next few years as your source of financing the project). Keep in mind that any increase in home size should be supported by the home sizes in your neighborhood – you don’t want to build that huge mansion in a neighborhood dominated by tiny ramblers – it will kill the resale value.
2. You could find a smaller home now that has excellent potential for increasing in value and then buy/move up again in a few years using your equity as your future down payment. A simple strategy of “buying the ugliest house in a good neighborhood”, using your handyman skills to improve the property, and then cashing out to buy up may be a great strategy to follow.

Either of these strategies will still get you your 4 bedroom dream home, but will do it in a more timely fashion. You may not be able to afford that 4 bedroom home right now anyway, but keeping in mind you won’t need it for a few years will help you come up with a strategy that will get you there.

Outside The Box Thinking

Knowing what your non-negotiables are, your real estate agent is then able to start thinking “outside the box” towards those homes that are potential dream homes for you. In the “4 bedroom” example above, finding a home with 2-3 bedrooms and an unfinished basement that could be easily converted to more living space would be an excellent alternative.

Or perhaps you require 3 bedrooms and a home office. Wouldn’t a 4 bedroom work just as well? Or is there potential to add on an office over the garage?

Or you need covered parking for 3 vehicles and it only has a 2 car garage. Would a carport addition work? Is there room to add a 3rd garage stall? (Do the covenants allow it?) Could the seller be enticed to help pay for such an addition through a seller concession? Would you buy it if the landscaping was better? If it had a fence?

In today’s overwhelming “buyers” market, many sellers are desperate to sell and are willing to concede much to entice you to buy. If there are certain things that are the only reason you are not considering the property – it doesn’t hurt to ask for concessions.

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