It might seem hard, but there are ways to de-stress your housing search. You just can’t let the drama bog you down.
What show had better drama than “ER?” I decided to screencap the above scene. Look at poor Carol Hathaway, head nurse of the ER at Cook County General. All she wants to do is get to Seattle and live happily ever after with George Clooney. But she has so much going on in her life. She’s raising twins on her own. Luka is creepily hanging around. She feels like it’s never going to get better.
And that’s the way a lot of buyers AND renters feel when they are trying to find the right home. You think you find the right one, make an offer, and BOOM, someone beat you by mere hours. So you find the next one that can be the one, and BOOM, it happens again. The third one, and BOOM, another offer was stronger than yours.
No matter how battle hardened you think you are, it is human nature to feel badly when you are rejected. But unless you plan to simply give up, you have to move forward. Hopefully, these tips can help de-stress your housing search.
Work with a Professional
If you aren’t using the services of a Realtor (even with a rental), you are not going to have the most updated information. Aggregate sites update well after the fact. Clients of mine send me listings they find on agg sites all the time. And 99% of the time, the reason that a given property wasn’t included on my list of prospects is because that property was already off the market. Remember, a Buyers’ Agent is almost always going to cost you nothing*.
*I cannot speak for every single real estate transaction in the history of real estate, hence the asterisk.
Get Your Financing Preapproved BEFORE You Start Searching
It’s very difficult to know what your actual budget is unless you speak to a mortgage lender. It might be far less or way more than you imagine. But even if you are very confident that you are shopping in the right price range, the first thing a Seller is going to want to know is “how are you paying for this?” Unless you are making a cash offer (in which case you’ll need to provide proof of funds), you will need your preapproval letter in hand. Otherwise, your offer is NOT going to be considered a real one.
Have All Other Paperwork Ready BEFORE You Even Start Searching
Whether you are renting or buying, you will have to submit paperwork. Besides your preapproval (only for buying, of course), there are many forms that are required in the State of Texas. Don’t waste time finally filling them out after you find a place you’d like to buy. That time could be the difference of getting your offer in first!
Keep Looking Even After You Submit An Offer
It would be great to have a Seller call you back within 10 minutes of seeing your offer, but that is a very rare occurrence. You can de-stress your housing search a lot by simply staying out and look for other opportunities. If the Seller gets back to you in 24 hours (a more likely scenario) with bad news, you just spent the day finding something else that could work! And if they do accept your offer, you got to see some really cool houses while you waited.
Happy hunting! By the way, everything worked out for Carol.