How early do you start home shopping?

M

mogul

New member
When should someone start home shopping?

I don't want to make a hasty decision so looking early and defining your tastes would make sense.

But I don't necessarily want to move NOW if I find something. 

Do you start looking 2, 3, 6, 12, ... months before you think you are ready to move or when you shop you better be ready to make your move?
 
We started looking about 6 months before i really wanted to move because i moved from out of town and wanted to familiar with the all the areas. It amazing how diverse the area is from ECM to Newport to Irvine. Even within Irvine from Irvine above 405 to irvine below 405.

But it took more than 17 months of looking to finally find something because there isn't much reasonably price inventory in neighborhoods we were interested in. We ended up trying a bidding war a  foreclosure bid, multiple no response short sale offers and others but ended up buying from a motivated move up seller.



 
i think it depends on a few things...

1) how well you know the city/general area...

2) how big of a city or how many cities are in your search criteria...

3) what kind of home you are looking for... new or resale?  are you looking in a city with lots of similar homes (like newer parts of irvine or aliso) or attached or truely unique sfr...  if you are looking for say detached condos, as i was, or attached, once you've seen a specific plan/layout you've seen them all (in that tract).  the only question is what condition is it in.. so i guess what i'm saying is give yourself more time if you're looking in older neighborhoods as the houses tend to be unique... but you shouldn't need so much time for newer communities... and you would need even less time to check out new homes...

4) finally if you are considering short sales... give yourself plenty of time... i had one bank come back to me after 6 months... then drag it out another month... and i still didn't get it.

so with all that said i guess it can be quick (i have a cousin that bought new in irvine... and he and his family wasn't really looking to buy... so if you consider the day they stumbled onto the new home grand opening, the time spent looking for homes, then they looked for 1 day... lol... and then there's me... a year now).

 
For both our houses it took about a year of looking (lightly at first and then aggressively the last three months) to pin down the area, plan and price we wanted.  The funny thing is both times we were at the 'I give up and want to quit looking' stage, the house we wanted popped up and our offer would be accepted.
Even if a house is in back-up offers but you really want it, don't give up and still pursue it.  Both the houses I bought fell out of escrow with a previously accepted offer from someone else and my offer was then accepted. 
 
mogul said:
When should someone start home shopping?
Click to expand...
I usually start at 6:45am, booting up the 'puter and loading Redfin.com.  :D

Like everyone else here says, it all depends on your time frame.

We've been looking for years... even when we bought our last home... a year later we started looking again because there were issues with it that we realized we couldn't live with.

We want to buy within the next 6 months because we want to prep our kids for the next school they are going to so that may or may not affect your own timeline.

Also... it depends if you are renting or if you have to sell, that also takes some juggling.

For shorts, it's good if you don't HAVE to move right now because as people drop off and move on, it puts you in a better position if the bank/seller ever come to terms.

For new homes, if there wasn't one that fell out of escrow, there is usually a 3-month+ period you have to add on because they release phases ahead of build-out.

Our first home... it took a while... maybe 6 months to a year. The last home we had in Irvine was much shorter because we knew exactly what style and where... that took about 2 months. In hindsight... maybe we should have taken longer but that was during the bubble hype and we were kind of worried prices would go beyond our affordability (not a great reason to pull the trigger but it happens). Prices did go up after but then the bubble burst... yet the certain area we bought in, prices are still pretty much where we bought so it would not have made a difference (at least for now).

It never hurts to look early... but just like you said... don't get too attached if right now isn't the right time for you to buy/move. Good luck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top