Ever spend time laying in the grass? Try this for fun. Pick which cloud is the best. That’s pretty similar to home hunting nowadays. Of he few homes active in the South Shore marketplace, many are renovated and staged, ready to list. These all look like a potential palaces. Even with a strong pent up demand from hungry buyers, many sellers are holding onto their homes in hopes of a tightly-wound economy building ever-rising home prices.  Experts are starting to ask: How high can you go? The altitude we’re reaching is becoming a scary place to be. Dare I say the dreaded word that we must not voice: Bubble(?).

There’s still some great product out there with a glut of buyers circling the targets. Sellers don’t have to be as competitive nowadays, as well. Remember the days when listings offered a variety of deals, services and bonuses to catch wide eyed buyer’s attention. Visions of fresh paint, custom flooring, New Kitchens and professional landscaping, offering to pay the buyer’s points, home warranties, etc. just to get potential buyers to look before driving by. It used to be so nice for buyers. All the sellers loved you, all those properties to choose from, all those sellers lined up on the playground yelling: “Pick Me! Pick Me!”

It was wonderful, but it’s also gone. Today’s buyer is facing a severe shortage of inventory to look pick through, as sellers hold back waiting for their property value to stop skyrocketing. There’s that overabundance of fellow buyer’s to compete with too. Your offer now has to standout from the pile of offers being smiled over by today’s sellers. To the dazed seller, It’s like a walk in Times Square, The whole thing’s an overwhelming blur of goodies and twinkly lights.

One of the biggest problems with buying your new house is the housing market itself, right now. The aforementioned shortage of inventory is applying brakes to what could be a runaway environment of frantic transactions. The greater choice and a better bargaining position that buyers enjoyed for years is not at all in evidence now. Driven buyers can easily become demoralized and burnout. You spend 8 hours driving all over Plymouth county checking out the few targeted houses, but found a lot of high priced, gorgeous houses that fit your dreams to a T, but have non-negotiable prices outside your range or …uhmm…unique fixer-upper opportunities. At the end of the day, you’re tired, bored frustrated and very mad at your agent for taking you on this hours-long rollercoaster ride of elation and disappointment. Not to mention, you’re out about $65.00 of gas. Enjoy some good targeted house hunting with these five tips.

1. Design your perfect home and search

“There’s always room for improvement, you know – it’s the biggest room in the house.” ~ Louise Heath Leber

Build your own personal home inspection sheet. Make a list of features you like in a home and features that are an absolute must-have. How close is it too the highway? Where are the schools? How many baths? Does it have a pool? What about storage? How many square feet of living space? The idea is to come up with a list that guides you and your Realtor so that the homes you line up on a tour will all be relevant homes within your price range. Below that have a couple of clear lines where you can jot down notes at each property. What did you like, what needs to be changed, needed repairs, interior condition, curb appeal, etc.  As you fill out each sheet, staple it to the listing form your agent will have emailed or printed for you before visiting the property. Along with helping you realize your particular tastes and desires, another wonderful use for these lists is to refine the home tour process for your Realtor. Each showing tour should be just a bit more refined. You and your Realtor reaching a Zen-like oneness in your ability to target the perfect new listing opportunities to go and see.

As an aside, ask your agent how an offer is made well before your ready to place one. Ask what options you can add in to sweeten your deal, if you need to, or conditions you need to include in your offer to better make it fit your needs. For instance, a cash offer is king. The seller won’t have as many hoops to jump through to clear the mortgage process.  You might be able to offer less, because your cash offer is so much easier to navigate and faster. That situation is hugely rare. If you are financing the purchase, ask your mortgage broker if they’ll provide custom pre-approvals for specific offers. If your offering $250,000, you probably don’t want the seller to know you’re pre-approved for $300K. Just saying, that’s a bad haggling tactic. Find out just how fast your mortgage officer could close the deal. A fast closing can be a huge incentive. If the seller is offering an incentive, like paying points or a home warranty, would you consider letting him off the hook to make your offer pop up over the others he’ll be considering.  It’s far, far better to know how your tools work before you need to use them.

2. Be organized

“There is no Try….There is only Do or Do Not.” – Yoda

Hunting for your “Forever Home”, or at least, your “Right Now Home” generates tons of information. That means paperwork. Your Realtor can generate reams of valuable information, prior to ever visiting a property. Public Records, Community Reports, Comparative Market Analysis Reports, Pot Plans, Surveyor’s reports, Title 5 plans, The Listing itself, etc. That pile of paper can get overwhelming fast, even electronic docs can be a bit much. Many clients prefer dialing it down until they want to offer on a property. Then their Realtor can let the flood gates open. Use your Realtor like a Library/Filter. We can give you an overview to make actual home hunting search easier on you, then, if you want to see where that overview came from,  drop the loads of evidence when you find a place you might want to offer on. You need to be able to sort all that information out and place each piece in such a way that you can find the data you need, when you need it. Get yourself a file folder or binder and sort them by town, then by address. This is way easier than sorting by street address or date of showing.  Ask your Realtor for electronic reports by email. Electronic folders can be filed any way you like. They have the added bonus of being searchable, to easily find the specific document you want. Electronic docs also save paper, great for the environment and such.

Keep the data sheets from your agent and your personal inspection sheet together in your file. Save everything too, even info on homes you didn’t like. You never know when you’ll want to remember something specific that you did like about the home. When you do place an offer, keep the paperwork together. Your Realtor will keep copies of the offer, if you need them, but it’s safest for you to have your own. Offers aren’t always accepted and going back to review what happened, might give you some tips and tricks for the next offer. Also, the offer that winds up being accepted frequently evolves in a volley of offers and counteroffers that goes  back and forth between buyer and seller’s agents. Label each one( v1, v2 and so on), because they’ll look very much alike, and stick it in your file. If you’re on version 5 (v5) of an offer, You don’t want to held accountable for responsibilities that were eliminated in version 2 (v2)

3. Use the internet – Educate Yourself, but Verify Everything.

“Trust, but Verify” – Russian Proverb

There’s a large quantity of useful tools out there to move your search along. Check out MLS, Zillow or Trulia to see specific houses, perform searches, get information on the sales process, market conditions or agent referrals. Be wary of automated twinkly lights, like mortgage calculators and online valuation estimates. Both are wonderful tools for really general purposes, but can be wildly inaccurate to your specific  situation. Your mortgage broker is the one to ask about up to date mortgage schedules and rates. Your Realtor can dig into public records and local sales to give you an accurate valuation on what to offer. Real Estate websites for the general public are generalized tools. Frequently Zillow/Trulia are inaccurate, sometimes wildly so. Don’t pay attention to specifics with them, like Zestimate. Use them to get a feel for the overall. These tools will help you pick houses to look at to helping you find your position in the marketplace and so much more. Remember to make your searches flexible. A little above and  below your desired range, looking for bargains on the low end and flexible motivated sellers on the upper end. You can, also, check out ratings for neighborhoods on schools, shopping, crime and many other nice-to-know stats. Download a QR app for your Smartphone. When passing by a home you like, Turn on the app and point your Smartphone at the sign. If there’s an odd black and white sign that looks like a pixilated cloud, point your phone’s camera lense at it. It’s like a UPC code. The difference is this one will direct you to a website that has the vital statistics of the house and contact information on the seller or his agent. No more frantically writing down numbers while you steer into a tree.

4. Examine your finances

“A hard worker has plenty of food, but a person who chases fantasies has no sense.”  - Proverbs 12:11

Eliminate any doubt about the power of your offer in yourself and the seller looking at it.. Prior to house hunting, get pre-approved for a mortgage. This gives a solid idea what you can afford, provides an early warning for credit issues(like credit scores, income, affordability, etc.) and lends you more credibility when placing an offer. Seller’s might not even consider your offer unless a pre-approval letter and other documentation are attached. Ask your Realtor for specifics about what needs to be in an offer. A lender bases pre-approval on your actual income, debt, and credit history. If you haven’t already, make yourself up a budget of what you typically spend in a month and how much you can afford for a down payment or monthly payment. If you need to consider low or no down payment loans, ask a mortgage officer about FHA, USDA, VA and other loan options. As mortgage rates rise, many mortgage companies are finding new and innovative ways to make mortgages more affordable. Consider very carefully any suggested mortgage product, some deals really are too good to be true. Adjustable rate mortgages in particular deserve a great deal of scrutiny. Your mortgage officer will have an attorney representing the bank, not you. That attorney is ethically and legally required to treat you with fairness. That said, You should have an attorney representing you, who will act as the quarterback for your team. Let them have a peek at any mortgage you’re considering. You’re Realtor might have a few opinions as well.

5. Build a relationship with your real estate agent

“Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.”
— Tennessee Williams

You and your agent need to be on the same wavelength. Your agent needs to know your price range, desired features and really, everything you can tell them. A good agent will take the risk of angering a shy client by asking a load of questions. As an agent, I’ll tell you: It’s uncomfortable for everybody when you have to do that. It’s even more uncomfortable when an agent doesn’t do that and you embark on a 6 hour tour of houses that you’re just not interested in. Lastly, Both you and your agent need to exchange Cell #, Office #, emails etc. Add your agent to your contact list, so you’ll see his name pop up on your phone when he calls. MLS and Realtors are frequently labeled as spam once the house hunt starts. There’s usually enough emails/texts/calls with tons of attachments that trigger a nasty reponse from spam filters. Fast communication is sometimes key to getting a deal through.

Taking these ideas and running with them is great start. But you can still do more. Every buyer is unique, so is every Realtor. Together you form a dynamic and ever changing relationship that needs to be nurtured and updated periodically. By staying with it and remaining focused,  your hunt for next home will be a lot more comfortable experience.

Lew McConkey, Realtor

Coletta Cutler Realty, Hanson