Many people get overwhelmed when looking for a new place to live and rightfully so. With all the information that is available and different choices it can get out heads spinning.

---

---

In this post, we going to take a sidebar from the real estate series and just talk about shortcuts and valuable actions we can take when looking for a new home, whether purchasing or renting.

#1 Real Estate Websites Are Your Friend

We are blessed to live in a time where 95% of the information a real estate agent has is readily available to us through various different websites.

Whether it’s your county’s assessor site or real estate listings site, the days of us having to rely on an agent solely to provide us information are gone.

Use sites like Realtor.com, Redfin.com, Zillow.com to initially kick of your home search.

Put in your criteria to narrow down your options

If you are looking for a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom home for under $150k or a rental for under $1,500 a month then plug in that information at any of the listing sites above and that’s what you will get.

#2 Do Your Research

After you’ve searched the listings and found some homes that interest you, now you want to dig a bit deeper to decide which ones are worth viewing.

This is important because if you start looking at homes before you know things like taxes, rental deposits, etc. then you could end up looking at something you like only to realize there if a financial consideration you are not willing to accept.

Examples:

Taxes

Not having any idea what the taxes on a home are and what the tax estimate is if you were to purchase it. Let’s say you look at that home because the sales price is in your range, you fall in love with the home only to find out that it’s in a neighborhood with high taxes that now puts it out of your budget.

In this instance you will not only have wasted time viewing that property you will have also gotten your hopes up only to be disappointed – and none of us like that.

Success Note: Nearly every county in the United States has a website for their tax collector’s office that will provide information on what the previous year’s taxes on a home were along with a calculator that allows you to plug in a purchase price to see an estimate of tax cost.

Schools

For those that have children you surely will have some concern on the schools zoned for a given home. This information is available on the home listing sites. Just be sure to scroll down and find it to see the rankings.

#3 – Think about the Intangibles

Remember to ask yourself what items are important to you for where you live

• Do you prefer being near highway exits or of the beaten path in more seclusion?
• Do you want to be walking distance to shops and stores?
• Have far away from the airport are you willing to be?

And there are so many more “little” things like that which greatly impact whether you are happy in your new home or not. So think about it!

Information is Power

Be sure to use what's available to your advantage and remove the stress out of your home search.

---

Regards,
Mitchell J

Download the property calculator free at scaredycatguide.com