Don’t Make These Sacramento Home Buying Mistakes

It can be a slow process, trying to buy a home in Sacramento, but it’s even slower if you don’t know where you want to live. Home buyers just starting out might have unreasonable expectations, and those types of expectations can lead to disappointment.

Before engaging a buyer’s agent to show homes, it’s common for buyers to identify and target a few communities. Agents can be a great resource, but buyers should really ask an agent to show homes when the buyers are ready and able to write a purchase offer. That’s not to say that an agent can’t help buyers to choose a place to live because that’s what we do. However, there are plenty of open houses every Sunday in Sacramento where buyers can go to look at homes, talk to other agents, get a feel for neighborhoods, without a personal escort.

Agents don’t hold all of the information anymore regarding homes for sale, but we do have access to MLS, which a buyer does not. We can send a buyer listings in certain areas defined by custom searches or however a buyer would like to receive the information. The best home buying website is generally the buyer’s agent’s own website or a feed directly from MLS.

Here are some of the common home buying mistakes I’ve heard about over the past few weeks that can easily lead to disappointment and frustration:

• Looking at homes with sales prices way above the buyer’s affordability point. It makes no sense to look at homes priced at $400,000 if your pre-approval letter maximum is $300,000.
• Dragging your agent through the same square-foot model home over and over, which a buyer does not like. If you really hate that closet and bathroom, it won’t look any different in the same model with different paint on the walls.
• Expecting a buyer’s agent to immediately respond to your email questions about new homes you just found on another website when she is showing homes to another client for a few hours.
• Asking personal questions of a seller to satisfy idle curiosity that have no bearing on whether the home is suitable for you and your children.
• Finding a home that fits your needs and pricing but not buying that home because you wonder if there might be some other home that is better for you. There is always another home.

Bottom line, if a home buyer needs to personally inspect 200 homes before buying a home in Sacramento, that buyer is probably not yet ready to buy a home. And that’s OK. But let your agent know and discuss expectations before asking an agent to show homes.