How to stay organised while house hunting
Who wouldn’t be thrilled about the idea of finding your dream home? House-hunting can be a really exciting time. However, when buying a home, it is easy to get carried away, so you should take your time with what may end up being a lifetime investment.
Making a massive decision like choosing a home can be stressful, especially when juggling daily responsibilities. As a result, to stay on track it is crucial to maintain your organisation. We compiled 5 house-hunting tips to help you in keeping organised while looking for your future home that will come in handy in order to reduce potential stress and maintain excitement throughout the buying process.
Tip #1: Prepare a Checklist
Make sure you are aware of your purchasing power before you even start looking at properties. It will be especially important for first-time buyers to give themselves time to save money before beginning their home search. Although it is typical for purchasers to find their ideal home before applying for a mortgage, this is not the best course of action!
Setting yourself a rough spending limit is a good idea. This will not only save you from blowing all of your cash on a house, but it will also focus your search and help you avoid disappointment in the future. Additionally, first-time buyers should do a long-ahead credit check. To avoid disappointment, it’s a good idea to raise your credit score before starting your property search because having a low credit score might make it challenging to secure a loan for a mortgage.
Last but not least, decide exactly when you want to purchase a home. But make an effort to be reasonable. Naturally, giving yourself a deadline of two weeks is excessively optimistic, may make you anxious, and may cause you to make a fast, rushed and rash decision. Additionally, delays can happen, changing the dates. It’s important to give yourself enough time to view a variety of homes, weigh your options, make the best choice, and ultimately organise the moving process itself.
Tip #2: Conduct your research
Okay, so you’re ready to start looking for a home. Time to conduct your research now. The initial stages of your home search can now be completed by just sitting at a desk with a computer and a notepad, thanks to the miracles of the internet. Once you’ve identified the kind of home you want (taking location, size, and the number of bedrooms into consideration), you can start looking at suitable homes online or in person with a local real estate agent.
Whether on a Word document or a piece of paper, it is a good idea to create a list of properties that meet your requirements and make a note of them. You might discover, though, that you now have an unending number of properties that you enjoy the appearance of. Given that it will be easier to choose which homes you are going to book a viewing for first and foremost, it might even be beneficial to make a comparison checklist and give each property a preliminary ranking out of 10.
Tip #3: Don’t buy the first house you come across
A common mistake made by first-time buyers is falling in love with the first home they see. Even if it feels likely that you’ll end up moving into the first house you see, it’s best to think about your other options. You never know; the home you visit next, or perhaps the one after that, could turn out even more ideal of what suits you.
If after looking at several potential houses you still feel that the first one you saw was the best, that’s fantastic! But before making a decision, it’s a good idea to spend some time considering the different homes you’ve chosen. No home will be completely ideal, so it’s important to weigh the pros and cons of each and decide which are most pertinent to your situation, both now and in the future.
Tip #4: Take photos or videos of each property you visit
After seeing ten homes, they can all start to look the same. For example, it’s okay if you can’t remember what the outside of the first house you looked at looked like or if you mix up the rooms in different houses. Because of this, we think you should take a lot of photos. Even though it might seem like too much, try to get more than one picture of each room in the house. After all, having too many shots is better than having too few. If you really want to go above and beyond, you could even record yourself walking around the house to get a more complete and exact image of the property.
If you do, save the photos in a separate folder with the right address written on them. By making sure to take pictures and/or videos of each property, you create a visual record that is easy to look back on as you look for a new home.
Tip #5: Gather as much info as you can about each property
Make sure to ask as many questions as you think are important as you look at each house. Still, buying a house is a big investment. You have a right to know everything there is to know about each place. Among other things, you might want to know:
- How long has this house been for sale?
- How long have the people who own the house been living there?
- Has anyone made an offer?
- Have any of the bids been turned down?
- Has any work, like an addition, been approved by the planning department?
- Has a survey been conducted, and did it identify any projects that are needed?
These kinds of enquiries can help you learn more details and get a better understanding of the subject property. For instance, if the seller informs you that the house has been listed for sale for more than two years, it’s possible that you haven’t been made aware of any downsides to the property. Maybe it’s at a place where the weekend noise levels are notorious? Or are there possibly issues with the school district? It is certainly important to enquire because it also seems likely that additional variables, such as altered market conditions or personal circumstances, could have impeded the quick sale.
The more information you have on a property, the better. If, at the end of your search, you are faced with a difficult choice regarding which house to go with, being able to refer back to this additional information will be helpful. Creating an advantages and disadvantages list of each house might be very beneficial if you find yourself in this situation. It will be a lot simpler for you to ultimately make that crucial choice if you carefully consider your options and compare the residences side by side.
These 5 tips for finding a home can make the whole process much easier and keep your search as organised and productive as possible. Many customers have benefited from Western Lettings Glasgow’s assistance in renting and buying homes in Glasgow. Contact us right away if you are about to begin your home search but still have some concerns.
