logistics of buying a rural or small-town house (appraiser, agent, accept)

[max.b]

I'm very unclear about the logistics of buying a cheap rural or small-town house:

You narrowed down your geographic preferences down to a state or two, but it can still take hours of driving to see the property, wherever you are, plus the drive back.

Would your (buyer's) agent come with you on these rides, or do you have to have different agents depending on the location?

Then you have the various inspections, etc.

Is there a better way to do this?

[Hollynla]

I am in the process of buying a "small town" house in a very rural area. We should be closing in a week. The reason we have to wait a week is that it took 2 1/2 weeks to find an appraiser who would accept the job and then it is taking the appraiser over 3 weeks to get it completed.

You need to narrow it down more than just a state or two. Focus on an area of the state. That's what we did and we found an agent in the nearest town. On the day we arrived to look at the houses, he met us at the first one and then we followed him to the other two houses. It took all day to see 3 houses but we bought one so it was very much worth the time of the agent. After we went under contract, the inspector did take about a week and a half to get out there but there are inspectors that work the area. Since we weren't from that state, we did rely on our agent to help find those people for us.

[max.b]

Thanks.

I wonder if it's common to just have the seller or his agent show you the place in cases like this?

[Hollynla]

Originally Posted by max.b

Thanks.

I wonder if it's common to just have the seller or his agent show you the place in cases like this?

It's always going to be in your best interest to have your own agent. One thing that I did notice about the very rural homes is the sellers don't leave, which in our case worked out great because the sellers told us things we could've never known if it was just us and our agent. For example, even though we had plat maps of the properties, the seller was able to show us the property boundaries himself, they were there to answer questions that weren't included in the MLS, such as the house we bought came furnished. My agent said that wasn't anywhere in the MLS and when he talked to the seller's agent, it wasn't mentioned. They are leaving some lovely high quality log furniture, riding mowers, tractor, etc. Once we learned this, I had the lady walk me back through the house and show me all that was being left behind. We stayed there at least 2 hours. We did make sure to have all the furniture that was included, listed in the contract. We were visiting from out of state so we didn't have a chance to visit any of the houses a second time so it was good that the sellers were there.