How to Buy a House Sight-Unseen
Relocating from out of the area is a huge undertaking all on its own. Add in a fast moving, highly competitive market, and you might feel like it’s impossible. Whether you motivation is to make a move for work, family, or other opportunities, we’re here to share some tips and tricks if you can’t be present for property showings.
The very first step to beginning your home search is to understand your finance options. This will help you focus on a price range that makes sense for your affordability, and it’s typically the first piece of search criteria buyers input into their search fields. A hardworking and trustworthy local lender like our colleague Ross Rushton at Fairway Independent Mortgage can put you in a position to capture the best interest rate as well as any additional perks or incentives that may be offered at that time. Additionally, you may elect to be fully underwritten prior to making offers—and this will make your purchase offer exceptionally stronger than the majority of the competition that’s out there shopping too.
Our team will help you understand the local market by analyzing trends and diving deep into hyper-local markets and niche neighborhoods; much like our MCM neighborhoods scattered throughout the region. Understanding the home buying process and the milestones along the way will go far for ease your mind about what to expect from the buying process as well as what’s expected from you as a buyer.
Digging into all properties—both on and off market opportunities—is where the rubber hits the road. You’ll start to receive properties that greatly match your wish list, and most buyer’s first showings happen via their favorite home search app. While most local buyers will then elect to tour their favorite homes in person, out-of-towners likely don’t have that luxury of changing out of their WFH sweatpants in a jiffy to catch a showing.
Video conferencing and phone calls have been around for quite some time, and many of you prior to 2020 probably used FaceTime two or three times a year to catch up with distant family during the holidays. With more WFH workforce, and the massive increase in usage of apps like Zoom, the real estate industry is embracing the technology.
We have taken this offering of customer service to a higher level. Our team offers live walk throughs of properties in addition to recorded walk through videos. It is a great experience for all and allows our buying clients an opportunity to tour homes from the comfort of home hundreds of miles away. It’s common to hit all the highlights: check out the layout, note room sizes, and to pay attention to the flow of the house. We’ve found it to be helpful to poke around at the not-so-common items of interest too. Have you ever looked at a serial number on a water heater to estimate the age, or do you know where to look for common locations of dry rot? How about what subterranean termite tubes look like?
Virtual showings and live video walk throughs are likely a thing to stay around for quite some time; especially with the speed that this market is moving. It just isn’t feasible to hop on a plane every weekend to tour homes, so why not leverage your Realtor’s experience and expertise to gain more info about properties you’re interested in. Reach out today for a no pressure, no obligation consult to discuss your situation and how we can help with your own home buying success story.
