Showings can be the most exciting part of the home search process. You'll get to visit many homes and see what you like and dislike. Stay tuned for some tips when viewing houses.

The best use of time is to see several houses at once. We can schedule a tour of 4-6 houses that you really like on a tour of homes, along with a couple that we might throw in. With this, expect to spend 2-3 hours looking at 4-8 homes in a similar geographic area. We usually provide you with printouts of each house so that you can take notes on each house. We generally like to show about 4-8 homes at a time because if we look at more than 8 houses, it's hard to remember each home. Be sure to take notes to help refresh your memory later on. Use the sheets we provide to serve as a reminder about that specific home.

Showings

Once we have gone through the bulk of your favorite homes list, we will be waiting for the one or two homes that show up each day. If you spot one specific home that really catches your eye, please let us know immediately. We can usually schedule a showing within 24 hours, oftentimes on the same day. Note that houses are usually put on the market on Thursdays or Fridays with the goal of selling by Sunday.

Prior to visiting a home, research the properties. Dig deep and gather information from the resources tab on our website. Use the video called Researching Public Data to help you out. Do all of this before arriving at the house.

When having scheduled showings, there are things you can do to make the process more enjoyable and informative.

At the home, ask yourself what changes would you make to call this home?

Envision your furniture in the home.

How is the layout?

Think about how you would use the spaces in the home and if there are enough rooms.

Open Houses

When visiting an open house, you should be careful about what you say.  Keep in mind that the agent holding the open house represents the SELLER. They are obligated to tell the seller everything you say. This may not be a good thing for you because if you want to make an offer, the seller may already know some of your cards. Giving away some of your cards is like showing your hand in poker.

Coming Soon

Houses that are listed as “coming soon” can be scheduled for a showing on the coming soon date or later. They cannot be shown before the coming soon date as that’s a violation of the rules. Having a house listed as coming soon allows us to prepare a showing for it, on the first day it appears on the market.