"Quickie"
September 29, 2009
We were at a furniture store last weekend and struck up a conversation with one of the sales-girls. She and her husband are also looking for a house. She commented on the fact that we found a house so quickly and wondered what our strategy was. Quite simply really: Know your budget and then spend EVERY spare moment searching.
First we went online to orientate. Almost immediately the CASNAN site became our best friend. Besides being able to search for local listings, it also gave an instant overview of real-estate agents. We looked every single one up on the internet, and those that had a site we bookmarked so we could check back daily for new listings. Those that didn't have sites we noted down to keep their phone numbers and such at hand.
Then the really fun part started: looking at actual houses online! Looking back about 90 houses had some potential. Each listing that spoke to both of us in some way, went into an Excel file which contained 3 pages: Love, like and shot down. The count was down to 60. Then the annoying part began: calling after real-estate agents to get more information and to make appointments. After each round of new information the Excel sheet was updated. The love category become smaller and smaller - our agenda's became busier and busier. Every lunch time, every day after work and every weekend was spent looking at houses and driving around neighborhoods. Real-estateagents started calling us when they'd view a house they thought might be something up our alley, widening our "possibles" pool even more (click here for our experiences with real-estate agents).
In the end it took us 6 weeks and 30 viewings to narrow it down to 2 really strong options. To get a semi-unbiased opinion, Julie's Dad came along to look at them and give advice. In the end it took 7weeks from the day we started searching online to the day our offer was accepted. A lot better than the 3 months everyone was warning us about!
First we went online to orientate. Almost immediately the CASNAN site became our best friend. Besides being able to search for local listings, it also gave an instant overview of real-estate agents. We looked every single one up on the internet, and those that had a site we bookmarked so we could check back daily for new listings. Those that didn't have sites we noted down to keep their phone numbers and such at hand.
Then the really fun part started: looking at actual houses online! Looking back about 90 houses had some potential. Each listing that spoke to both of us in some way, went into an Excel file which contained 3 pages: Love, like and shot down. The count was down to 60. Then the annoying part began: calling after real-estate agents to get more information and to make appointments. After each round of new information the Excel sheet was updated. The love category become smaller and smaller - our agenda's became busier and busier. Every lunch time, every day after work and every weekend was spent looking at houses and driving around neighborhoods. Real-estateagents started calling us when they'd view a house they thought might be something up our alley, widening our "possibles" pool even more (click here for our experiences with real-estate agents).
In the end it took us 6 weeks and 30 viewings to narrow it down to 2 really strong options. To get a semi-unbiased opinion, Julie's Dad came along to look at them and give advice. In the end it took 7weeks from the day we started searching online to the day our offer was accepted. A lot better than the 3 months everyone was warning us about!
Posted by Julie Tchong
