House Hunting Tips

Choices when house hunting – it’s great to have them but challenging to narrow them down. Whether you’re trying to decide where to have dinner, which movie to see or something as important as where to live, making up our minds while house hunting is sometimes quite difficult.

House hunting is either feast or famine: sometimes there may be too many that offer exactly what you want and other times, there are no homes that you like. So, how do you navigate this house hunting journey to find the right one?

Here are some factors to consider when weighing one choice against the another while you’re house hunting.

Home Buying Tips

two story grey house in hand Mortgage Costs and Financial Considerations are a couple of key factors to think about when you’re going to be house hunting.

One of the biggest mistakes people make when house hunting is they assume their monthly mortgage payment is the only financial commitment they’ll have when owning a home. Sometimes there is much more involved with home ownership that just the monthly mortgage payment. Consider these additional costs before and during your house hunting:

Electricity, water and other utilities
Repair Costs
Association, neighborhood or condo fees
Homeowners insurance
Maintenance, such as landscaping, pool service etc.

TIP: Compare the real costs of owning the houses in question during your house hunting. One may just price itself out of the decision-making process.

Real Estate Tips For Buyers

woman laying in the leaves looking up at the sky and thinking There are some basics to consider while house hunting and these are location, structure and design.

Think back to when you first decided you were going to start house hunting to buy a new home. While price may have your biggest concern, location may have factored into your thoughts as well. Many homebuyers end up compromising on location, veering away from their original intent when they started out house hunting.

TIP: Compare the locations of the houses that you’re interested in. Which location fits your original intent? Are you compromising on location when you don’t have to? Go over this list and remind yourself of which aspects of location are most important to you:

Commuting distance
Local crime
Neighborhood age and cleanliness
Neighborhood traffic noise
Proximity to shops, hospitals and schools
Nearby features that may drag down property values, such as a landfill
Future nearby development projects
Local economy
Property values

Also, extremely important when you choose a home is the structural integrity of the house. While it may seem beautiful, if it isn’t well built, home maintenance costs could cripple a new owner’s finances. Here’s another opportunity to compare houses. Which one is more structurally sound?

Something that attracts you to a house is the design and layout.

TIP: What design elements do your choice homes have in common and which house presents those elements better? Look at the floor plans and picture yourself using them. Is one more functional than the other? Are there odd shaped rooms that may end up driving you crazy?

Still Stuck With The Property Purchase?

Ask yourself, if finances were not an issue, what you would change about each house? Allow your imagination free reign on this one and you may find that one house edges out the other.

While we don’t advise you to go with your gut or flip a coin when deciding which house to buy, in the end, it may come down to emotion.

On one level you’re making an investment decision — but you’re also choosing something very emotional ― a home. When all the pros and cons have been thought over and your priorities examined, whether or not a house feels like home is an important consideration.

As you get ready to start the house hunting be sure to check out our Guide To Buying A Home.

We’re happy to help you with your house hunting to find the perfect home in the ideal location.