The Right Number of Houses to See Before Making an Offer
Should you make an offer on the first home you love? Is it better to wait until you’ve looked at multiple homes? How do you know what to do?
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Today, it’s not unusual for home shoppers to look at hundreds of homes. Now this doesn’t mean that they visit hundreds of homes in person. Instead, they look at them online. Technology has made it possible to feel like you’ve been to the home just looking at it online.
Using the internet to your advantage, you can truly shop for a home and narrow down your options without leaving the comfort of your own home now.
Browsing the Internet
We highly recommend that you view as many homes as possible online. Take the 3D tours and read all of the information provided. You can even do a little of your own research once you have the street address of the property.
Doing this preliminary research can help you get a good feel for the area. You’ll know what features are common for the area. You’ll also get a feel for price per square foot and get basic information about the market for the area you want to move.
Seeing Homes in Person
Your ability to view multiple homes is much more limited when you go to view them in person. Not only is logistics a potential issue, but there are only so many hours that you can spend to visit potential homes. Usually visiting two or maybe three homes a day is plenty. If you view too many, you’ll find that the features, prices, and nuances of each home will start to blend together. Suddenly, you won’t be able to differentiate between the different properties.
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It’s a good idea to visit at least 10 homes in person, though. This is after you’ve narrowed down your options online. Again, viewing homes online can help you know right away when a home is an eyesore or just doesn’t suit your needs. You could save yourself hours just by viewing the property online.
Should You Buy the First Home You See?
Love, at first sight, is common when looking at homes, especially your first home. You think you know what you want and when you enter the home, you feel as if it screams your name. While it may be the perfect home, we don’t recommend bidding on it before viewing at least a few more homes.
As you walk into other homes, you’ll either deepen your appreciation for the first home, making it more sure that this is the home that you want or it will make you realize that the first home wasn’t as spectacular as you once thought.
So is it possible to buy the first home you see? It definitely is, but we recommend looking at a few more homes to help you make up your mind. You don’t want to have buyer’s remorse.
Of course, if you are operating in a seller’s market where there are buyers every way you turn, then you may want to speed up the process a little bit. We aren’t saying to forgo seeing multiple homes or to forget about your online research, though. You may just have to speed up the process if you want to avoid losing the home you want to a competitor.
