Attending open houses for homes is one of the best ways to find the perfect home to buy. An open house allows you to visit a home during certain hours and walk through it. There is typically a real estate agent there to answer any questions you may have, and you can spend as much time in a house as you would like. If you are getting ready to buy a house, you may want to find out when there are open houses on homes in your area. As you set out to visit these homes, here are some tips to help you know what to look for when viewing the homes.
Ask For A Listing Sheet
When people host open houses to help sell their homes, a real estate agent will be there to show the home, and the agent will usually have listing sheets available for the home. This sheet is a printout that contains a lot of helpful information and details about the house you are looking at. It will tell you details such as the year the house was built, the square footage, the price, the number of rooms, and much more.
If you like the house at all and are considering possibly buying this house, hang on to this sheet of paper. It will contain the name of the real estate agent and his or her phone number. If you have questions at a later time or want to schedule another showing, you can use this paper as a reference.
Make Notes
You could bring a notebook with to make notes of the house, or you could use the backside of the listing sheet. If you write on the listing sheet itself, you can have all the information on one piece of paper for each house you view. Making notes while viewing open houses is vital if you want to remember details of each of the houses you look at. If you do not do this, all the details might run together in your mind, and you may have a hard time remembering which home had specific features.
As you make notes, it's important to write down a lot of details. Here are some ideas as to what you may want to include on your sheet of notes:
- Features that you absolutely loved about a house – As you walk through homes, you will probably see certain features in each one that you really like, and you can write these down as you view the homes. For example, if the master bedroom has a huge window that lets in a lot of natural light, you might want to remember this detail if it is really important to you.
- Things you did not like – It's also important to write down things you didn't really like about a house. For example, if the bedrooms were really small, you might view this as a negative trait.
- Questions you have – You should also write down questions that you have. You could then ask the agent these questions, and the agent might be able to answer them. If not, the agent can find out the answers from the homeowner and get back to you with answers.
It can be hard to find a house that has every single feature you want, and that is why it's important to make a list. You will have to weigh the pros and cons of each home you view.
Shopping for a house can be fun and exciting, and viewing open houses is a great way to find out what types of homes are available. If you are interested in viewing open houses, contact a real estate agent to find out what open houses are coming up soon.
