The Real Estate Cupboard #17 Archives by: Steve Hubbard, Certified Buyer’s Representative

Keys to Effective Shopping For Real Estate

Whether you’re a renter or a buyer, I have found there are several important keys to effective shopping for Real Estate. It is important to know what you want in terms of style and practical elements as well, and be able to carefully articulate these ideas in specific terms. It is also necessary to prioritize, to be able to compromise and to be open to new ideas. To recognize that you might ultimately buy something completely different from what you thought you wanted is important too. It’s a question of thinking carefully, being willing to be a little adventurous and being patient, aware and balanced.

Many times customers looking for a house to rent or buy who are calling me for the 1st time will say something like, “Got anything really nice?” “What do you mean?” I’ll ask. “You know, something really nice.” Is this person asking if I know of a mobile home on Ulster Ave. in Saugerties because he or she is a construction worker working on the new road and it would be nice to go home lunch, or is he or she asking about acres and acres of pasture land teeming with wild life viewed through the window of a beautifully restored farm house. Maybe what’s important to this person is to have plenty of neighbors around so that in case a problem arises such as an illness, there will be someone to call on for help. The key is that the more complete and specific an idea you have of what you want, the more effective you can be in finding it. It may mean paradoxically, however, that you need to first do some looking with virtually no idea in mind other than perhaps price. If, for example, you are 7 feet tall, and think you want to own a house built 200 years ago, you might have to bump your head a few time to see that this is maybe not what your looking for after all. Or perhaps you work with computers all day and need lots of electric outlets and phone jacks but crave the charm you imagine in an older home unlikely to have these things.

This is where it becomes necessary to prioritize and compromise. You don’t want a long driveway to plow in the winter but you don’t want to be near a road either? I think your just going to have to pick one. This is why lots of thinking and lots of looking is so important. When it comes right down to it, what is really important to you and what are you willing to give up? Perhaps no specific details are more important to you than how a house feels to you when you’re in it. Nevertheless, carefully thinking about what that really means to you will be helpful.

And then finally being able to accept that although you know you have really come to understand in minute detail exactly what it is you are looking for, what you finally buy may be something entirely different. So thinking and saying things like “no, it can’t be old; I hate old; I’ll never live in an old house”, Or “ranches, yuk, I can’t stand them”, isn’t the kind of thinking that’s going to effectively help you along the way to your goal.

So, look a little, think hard, get real and get specific, then look more, perhaps lots more, and be patient, open and aware, balanced and a little

Steve Hubbard owns and operates Steve Hubbard Real Estate Services.
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