Almost everyone starts their home search by looking at houses online. The problem with that is that most of what you can find online are all for sale.
That doesn’t sound like a problem, I know. Most people figure, isn’t that what I should be looking at?!
The problem is that anyone can list a house for sale for as much as they want. There are tons of overpriced homes. And it can be misleading, and make it hard for a buyer to truly understand how much a home is actually worth…especially when it’s your first home purchase.
The way to truly understand how the value of homes in the marketplace is to look at the recently pending/closed sales.
Sellers and their listing agents look at that data in order to determine how much to list a house for. (But, as I said, many ignore the data and overprice.) Yet, buyers rarely get a look at closed sales until they’re making an offer, and an agent shows them some “comps”.
Here’s just a few things to look for:
How many sales there were total within the price range you want to stay.
Do you have more options than you thought? Less?
Which area(s) had more sales in your range?
Get a sense of the size and condition of the homes that sold.
If you want a fun exercise, pick your top 3 favourites and send them along to me so I can get a sense of what you would like if it came on the market….and please feel free to reach out to me with any questions or concerns regarding the Buying process.