Searching for a New Home
If you have found this website, it is a near certainty that you already know a thing or two about searching on the internet for a new home. The only way anyone finds this site is if they are actively searching the internet for a home, or are using the internet as a research tool to determine what the market looks like right now. You are not alone. In November 2008, the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) released a study that says that 87% of buyers are using the internet to search for their next home. Rest assured that anything you can find on other real estate searches (like Realtor.com - a national real estate site maintained by NAR) can be found here on the Hudson Valley New York Homes site. With the added ability for the homes to be located on a map.
You will note that some homes "cannot be mapped." Yup, it is true they can't - not on any site on the internet, and that is for a couple of reasons:
- With New Construction, in many cases, the address has not been determined yet. The address is often set at the end of the project. Sometimes you will get to choose a number yourself - within a limited range, of course.
- For the rest, the listing agent selected to not allow the homes address to be identified. Not many agents do this, and you wonder why any of them do, because the number one source of value in any home is....drum roll: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION! Failure to market a home's location is failure to adequately market the property. Doh!
Sigh...for these you will have to call a REALTOR® to find out where it is. This is the oldest trick in the 'old-broker' real estate book to hold the address a sEcReT, so to get you to call. Sorry...
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION, how to dial in your Location
The first thing you want to determine is how far you are from wherever it is you want to be most of the time. You could have your REALTOR® do this for you, or you can do it for yourself. You may be bouncing around trying to decide early on what your limits are, and you may want to start by doing this yourself.
So here's what a smart REALTOR® would do: The easiest way to do this is to use a map search, like Google Maps or Map Quest. Just key in to a directions search the ZIP Code for the town you are looking for a new home in, and then your destination town to to get the miles and approximate driving time. That's it, just the ZIP, and you will get a 'close enough for real estate' idea of distance. Then you can just visually choose towns on our search map that are within that radius (target) to your destination and be...close enough for real estate. At the end of this page is a list of towns and villages, with their ZIP Codes for your use in the initial distance setting portion of your search.
House Styles
If you are not familiar with the house styles, now is a good time to use the search to learn what they look like. If you are coming from a different state, you may want to do this even though you already think you know. Certain styles you are accustomed to may not even exist here in the Hudson Valley, depending on where you are from. Other styles may have different names than you are familiar with, like the "bi-level." In Memphis they call it a "split-foyer." Here in the Hudson Valley it is also mistakenly referred to as a "raised ranch." The Cape Cod may look a little different here than it does on say Cape Cod... It shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to go through the local house styles to see what you are dealing with. It'll also help you understand that some styles are pricier than others.
Bedrooms
Bedrooms everybody understands, but when you get to some of the older houses, bedrooms may be looked at a bit more loosely. Modern bedrooms have closets, where in older houses some of them don't. The old-house configuration rules here and bedrooms can be called so without the closet. With newer houses built after the 40s this is not an issue.
Bathrooms
Not too much to say here except that locally a bathroom with only a shower instead of a tub is still considered a FULL BATH. A half-bath, or lavatory, has a sink and commode combo.
Property Size
This is locally referred to in acres and not in square feet. Typical city and village lots are found from 0.2 to 0.5 acres, and out in the towns - which are the more rural areas, they can vary from 0.2 into the multiples of acres.
PRICE
The best advice here is to not overdo it. What you will need to do before going out to look at homes is validate your ability to finance a home purchase to anyone you make an offer to by getting a mortgage pre-approval. Remember what the lender told you when they gave you the pre-approval. They should have told you the minimum needed for a down payment, what the fees were for the various services that you will have to pay for at the closing table. Mortgage points and fees, appraisal, title insurance, home insurance, approximate taxes and other misc. stuff. Then you will have an attorney, and also a home inspector (who you will pay for at the inspection). So, add all that up and you have a bunch of bucks in total! You want to make sure you have money in the bank to cover the closing costs comfortably. The rest, including the mortgage amount you can afford is what you have to spend on the house.
If you use a decent REALTOR® you should expect to get at least a 3% reduction from the asking price of a resale - maybe more if your agent knows how to accurately value real estate and the asking price found to be higher than market value. SO, set your search price conservatively to 3% over what you think you can comfortably pay for a house. And stick to it.
On new construction, with over 900 on the market selling at the fast clip of 12 per month, builders may be more negotiable. They do have hard and fixed costs, like the cost of all building materials, so the negotiation for a new home can be wider ranging than for a resale. A good REALTOR® can help you make sense of all this.
NOT PART OF THE SEARCH, BUT NECESSARY TO SAY....Also, from NOW until you leave the closing table with the house-keys in your pocket, don't be out buying cars and other high-ticket items that will deplete your bank or add to your monthly payment load! This will negatively change what you are able to afford in a house.
AND NOW...You are all set to begin the REAL search for your next home
USE YOUR REALTOR®
Now that you are prepared to do the search yourself, you are in a position to put your REALTOR® through their paces. Ask questions, push them with what you have found on your own, consider the homes they have found for you, and once you have found some things of interest, make an appointment to go out and see some homes in person.
Of course you may want to see some of these places on your own to know if actually being there makes you feel like you might feel at home there. That's why having the address is cool. You can get your Map Quest directions, get in the car, and drive out to the house to look around. What does the street look like, the neighbor's houses, what kind of cars are parked around, what the kids look like, and all that stuff.
Now what you will see when you get there is the listing agent's sign. Don't call that number! That agent represents the seller and WILL NOT actually represent you. All agents work within the "laws of agency," and can only represent one client at a time, and that agent will be looking to negotiate hard on the seller's behalf, and NOT Yours.
We just know you will want to call us! Remember: We are looking for work and need you to CONTACT US! Just having the cool website doesn't make us any money - we actually need to be walking the walk, talking the talk, and actually working on your behalf before and during the time you make any offer - to get paid at the closing of sale. Getting paid is very important to any REALTOR® in today's market, and since it is the SELLER WHO IS PAYING THE COMMISSION, you will want to make absolutly certain that you get full moneys worth out of THE SELLERS MONEY, now won't you?
Aren't you glad YOU don't get paid that way where you work?
