When it is time for your family to look at new homes for sale, you may feel overwhelmed by all the information your real estate agent is giving you. How can you ever decide which house is best for your family, in which neighborhood? In fact, over half of home buyer consider finding the right property the most difficult part of relocating the family, over selling their own homes and the process of moving. In order to skim right past the unnecessary information and find out what’s important when scoping out your next home, you need a quick guide to help you. Here are the most important things to ask your real estate agent about when you have your eyes on a new house.
What are the CMA reports?CMA software, or comparative market analysis, will tell you if the realtor is asking a fair price for the home you are interested in. CMA tools compare the cost of your hopeful house with other similar homes in the CMA software to see if they are selling for a similar price. This real estate software is a crucial tool in determining the asking price for the home you are looking for. CMA software will be used for the home you are selling, too.
Will I be surrounded by new construction? It is important to know ahead of time what developmental stages the area the homes for sale are in. If you are the first fully finished home in an up and coming subdivision and are surrounded by empty lots as well as new home construction, you may want to consider how all of the developmental activity will affect your family. Will the crews be working at odd hours of the day? Will the street to my home ever be cut off? Additionally, buying a home near where a large construction project is taking place—such as the building of a hospital or school—may be regretful if the construction is loud or inconvenient.
Should I be concerned about crime? Is this a neighborhood where your front door can be left unlocked, or would you need to invest in an alarm system if you choose to move here? Real estate agents may be reluctant to be upfront about these less savory statistics that are involved in selling a home, but it is important for you to found out how safe your family will be here, from your children playing in the back yard to your wife unloading groceries from the car in the evening. Additionally, you may want to utilize a sex offender map that can be found on the web, which will identify homes near yours that house a registered sex offender.
Are custom homes an option? No one wants to live in a cookie cutter house. If you are building a new home on an undeveloped lot, find out how you can tweak the model home or floor plan to reflect your family’s individual taste. Many urban developers are placing extremely similar houses down in new neighborhoods one after the other; ask your agent about making your home feel like your own with unique windows, stone accents, and more.
How long does the average family spend in this neighborhood?The perfect suburban neighborhood will rarely have homes for sale because, well, no one wants to leave. If the homes for sale in the area you are eyeing are a dime a dozen, you may want to be suspicious of why. Is a developer having a really difficult time selling a cluster of twelve new homes in a subdivision? You may find out too late that it is because the homes were knowingly built near a swamp, and will flood with every mild thunderstorm. Does it seem like there is at least one new house for sale every month in this neighborhood that was once impossible to get into? If you do not do your research, you may not know until too late that it’s because of a hog confinement plant recently built nearby—and the neighborhood is downwind.
Adequate research and CMA software can help you choose a neighborhood you won’t regret!