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I know there are many agents here, and a lot of people moving or have moved here recently. My question is, how early is too early to start looking at houses? We just signed a year lease in June, getting married in 2 weeks, and would like to be in a house before our lease is up May 2015. Is it too early to start looking now? Or is this the type of thing that is "never" too early?
I don't know if I would meet up with an agent just yet. I would go hard core exploring different areas on my own. Driving around a few areas a few times you'll start to warm up to certain areas. We had access to an agent for the 3 years it took us to sell our house in Atlanta (husband was living here during the week). Occasionally my husband would call him and they would go look at a house for an 'idea' of what was selling, etc....but really up until the last six months we didn't need the agent. We drove around neighborhoods, husband went to open houses. We eliminated neighborhoods and narrowed our scope.
It's never too early to plan for the future, however, most of the research at this point will be done by you, to me you're in the "feeling it out" period. I would say six months out is a good time to really sit down and start making plans.
What I would recommend you do in the near future is visit the Home Ownership Resource Center is North Charleston.
There are 100's of grants, loans, programs, etc available for us to use, and most folks don't know where to look. The reason I love the Home Ownership Rescource Center is because they will sit down with you, review your situation and help you come up with a "life plan" for the next year and help guide you to home ownership.
Sit (or lay back) and enjoy the new life for a few months. Start looking at homes then. Do not sign a deal (even if on a cocktail napkin) with any...any...any...agent. Do not even sign a guest/register book. Sign nothing...nothing...nothing. Do not even register on real estate web sites.
Look up Procuring Cause.
Just start looking and gathering information. Keep your ideas and thoughts to yourself.
Budget
Neighborhood
Must Haves
Cant haves
Could fix/work with/live with
+1.
Not a real estate agent, but someone who is hunting and has spent a lot of time exploring neighborhoods. Spend time driving around. Play around on Zillow plugging in the sorts of things above and see what various neighborhoods repeatedly pop up. Then drive over and visit them at different times of day and during the weekend.
I've also done lots of Googling since some neighborhoods, especially those with HOAs, have their own websites. Search the archives here on different neighborhood search terms.
We started this process over a year ago and have pretty much narrowed down our search to only two neighborhoods based on all of these above. When we are ready to sign with a realtor, I'd still hope that individual learns our needs/wants well enough to possibly show us areas we hadn't considered though.
I would disagree. I'm working with several people who are really getting ready to buy a year or more in the future. We're not necessarily driving around physically looking at houses but I can send them reports whenever something comes up that matches their search criteria. This way a buyer gets a chance to become more familiar with the whole area and refine their parameters over a period of time. They can see price trends in a neighborhood and see how often bargains tend to crop up etc. The folks I work with enjoy the process.
It also gives the agent time to become more familiar with the buyers needs and desires (which often change) and answer any questions that might come up over the course of time. I don't require a buyer to sign anything or commit to me as their agent. If by the time they're ready to buy, they feel I'm not the agent they want to work with, they're free to use whoever they want.
I also send only the reports and answer any questions the buyer might have. No spam. There's really nothing to risk and it's just getting you better prepared. The commissions on a real estate purchase can be pretty healthy. You may as well let the agent earn them!
I would disagree. I'm working with several people who are really getting ready to buy a year or more in the future. We're not necessarily driving around physically looking at houses but I can send them reports whenever something comes up that matches their search criteria. This way a buyer gets a chance to become more familiar with the whole area and refine their parameters over a period of time. They can see price trends in a neighborhood and see how often bargains tend to crop up etc. The folks I work with enjoy the process.
It also gives the agent time to become more familiar with the buyers needs and desires (which often change) and answer any questions that might come up over the course of time. I don't require a buyer to sign anything or commit to me as their agent. If by the time they're ready to buy, they feel I'm not the agent they want to work with, they're free to use whoever they want.
I also send only the reports and answer any questions the buyer might have. No spam. There's really nothing to risk and it's just getting you better prepared. The commissions on a real estate purchase can be pretty healthy. You may as well let the agent earn them!
This is huge, and yes, would make it much easier to understand the area as long as the agent truly isn't requiring a commitment.
I would never sign an agreement with an agent when buying.
We all have different comfort levels with gathering information. We had access to all the MLS listings and were able to keep up with the changing market ourselves. If you know what you want, it's easy --- driving through an area tells you yes or no right away.
Driving around also gave us a good feel of the commutes and whether or not we would really want to be that far out or that close in. After we decided on the Mt. Pleasant area we spent hours driving around the community. We quickly became very tired of the drive north of 41 to Rivertowne or Dunes West and further north on 17 to Park West, Darrell Creek, etc. We spent so much time at Hamlin, I could tell you the floor plans of every house built, and for sale for a two year period. Even then the drive into the subdivision and along Rifle Range made us realize that it was our outer limit of where we were willing to go. Now I'm glad we stayed away from Rifle Range seeing all the development and the already increasing traffic.
Start with exploring on your own. If you find you aren't getting a sense of where you want to be or what communities are really like, reach out to an agent. They can jump start your search but I still think the best resource is your own personal ability to have time to explore and get a feel for the area. You have a whole year.......it will be so much fun to check out the areas.
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