10 Essential Tips for Finding your New Home

Finally deciding to settle into a house from the burden of renting or living in your parents' basement? Or maybe you need more space with the growing kid or animal zoo that's on the way. It's time to take a look at some essential tips which well help you get settled in no time!

❤ Love,

Miss C

1. Cut the commute

"Buy this car to drive to work. Drive to work to pay for this car." - Metric.

Are you going to be moving away from your current job or closer to it? Or maybe it's time to find a new one? Whatever the case, please take your work commute into consideration. In Toronto where I used to live, I have talked to people who have settled for a 1 to 2 hr commute to their city jobs either by car due to traffic congestion or by stuffy public transit, just to say that they now own a house that they barely have time to live in. If you have an activity that you love, maybe you want to be closer to where that activity can be accomplished (for example, living in a rural area if you have a horse currently held in a rented space is beneficial if there is room on your property for a ranch or living near a lake is best if you plan on fishing every morning at sunrise). Cutting the commute can also mean cutting the travel time between you and your favorite activities so you can do more of what you love.

2. Research the neighbourhood

"How close is the nearest fire hydrant?" - Your local home insurance company

Will you be moving to a hot new metropolis with exciting attractions, fine cuisine and art shows nightly? Is it safe to be strolling around with your Louis Vuitton hanging around your arm, or are you thinking about hiding your jewelry inside your jacket so no one will rob you? There could be a serene lake nearby, but whoa... is that a nuclear plant across the other side? Use Wikipedia and research crime rates, population sizes, tourism and any other quirks you may be looking for in a town. Wherever you decide, consider if you would let your hypothetical daughter stay there by herself one night.

3. Look for jobs in your potential house range

You should be able to narrow down your house selection to a radius of at least 50km if you are seriously looking for both a new job and a house at the same time. Please consider gas expenses for savings in commuting to the new job as well as interviews, and determine what kind of salary could support your utilities and sustain your house budget reasonably. After we received a sizeable house list from our real estate agent, we could not help but give an advantage to the hub city that was within distance of 5 other majoring cities. We knew we could find a wider selection of stores, grocery selection and services if we were in the middle of all the action!

4. Ask somebody who has gone through the process

Do you know somebody who currently owns a house or who pays a mortgage? Although some people may be stingy about how much they pay per month, there are still a lot of questions about the house-finding process that can be illuminating. How do you start? How long did it take for you to find a house? When did you find time between both you and your significant other (so) working? Did you and your so find your dream house or did you settle? Did you do any renovations yourself since your original purchase? Asking someone who has already managed to surpass all the obstacles and forms to finally get a deed can be eye-opening. Hopefully their experienced homeowner buying knowledge can lend a different perspective in your house hunting.

5. Get a real estate agent you can trust

I am very lucky to be in a small town where there are only a handful of real estate agents that have their faces plastered on lawns and fences. We had a jolly plump man who was brash and frank about the houses we viewed together (and if he couldn't fit through the door or hallways, we knew it was not a house for us even though we are skinny people!). He originally helped my so's sister and her boyfriend find their house in the nearby city and it was someone that we felt we could trust in helping make one of the biggest decisions in our lives. He gave us access to the real estate site with all the available listings that met most of our criteria (yes, we made a criteria list) and we were able to Decline, Save, or Star (Favorite) different listings. Since both my so and I were not working at the time, we blew through the list of 200+ and narrowed it down to around 30 or so. We e-mailed our real estate agent and a few days later, we found that he had decimated the list down to just 6! Houses were either in bidding wars, did not pass house inspections, were in bad neighborhoods or as our real estate agent said, "Was bad enough that I wouldn't let my dog live there!" Your real estate agent should be able to get a feel of your likes and dislikes pretty quickly and if they need help, assist them with a criteria list to narrow down your needs and budget. Is a third bedroom necessary? Is a basement necessary? Do you need a little or a lot of backyard space? We took around 2 months to finalize the papers for our house, but that was including searching for new listings every day and every night and with both of us not working at the time. I highly suggest creating a time frame that you can schedule with your real estate agent and create a list pre-hand of properties that interest you even if they are a bit out of your range or area.

6. Stock up on food

During the house hunting process, you may be excited to be able to leave your current living situation. Keep your goal in mind and try your best not to be discouraged. Stocking up food is a great way to decrease the stress that comes with having to shop for groceries during moving days. Buy freezer-made foods or cook food that can be used as frozen leftovers for quick reheat and eat. You will be able to know you already have a meal ready when you are hungry lugging boxes and furniture around and not have to spend funds on meals that could be better spent towards a lawyer or your first new property tax bill. Save yourself the mess of all the chinese takeout boxes and garbage that you will have to take out to the curb yourself anyway!

7. Make sure you have Internet access

If you are looking at rural areas, consider looking up the address and postal code of the new house to see if any Internet providers are able to service that building. It would be a drag to buy a house then have to resort to satellite Internet that may be slow or dicey. If you are changing addresses, take a look at any new promotional deals that your current service provider may have. Now would be the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the best deals while you still can switch.

8. Bring a marble to viewings

Did the pictures on the real estate site look funky to you? Did they do the fish-eye lens trick, or take pictures in the dark, or not even have pictures at all!? Sometimes, you go to a house and you immediately know what is wrong with it, but what happens on occasions when it seems to good to be true? If you find yourself taller than usual on one end of the room than the other, you may have found yourself a hidden foundation issue of the house. An easy solution is to bring a marble - or any round spherical object that will easily gravitate towards the lowest point in any room. Watching that little ball roll will help you determine if that house is sloping and may save you some seriously costly renovations.

9. Find a house that will be easy for do-it-yourself renovation

Once you find a house that you like, that is within your budget, and has a solid foundation, please consider the option for future renovation. Being able to purchase a home that will be open to new design ideas (Ex. opening up living areas to create an open concept design) well help upsell your house when it is time. Easy projects to undertake include painting rooms, fixing drywall patches, certain insulation projects, kitchen makeovers, reflooring and gardening. You would be surprised how some staging and a new palette can redesign the flow of an entire room from quaint grandmother antique vintage to rustic country-style living with just a few earthy tones.

10. Take your time and select wisely

Never feel rushed to make a decision when you are not 100% gut-feeling positive about it. This is a large investment in your life that may span years of repayment commitment. The last thing you want is to make a purchase you will regret. Take the time to go through all the houses you feel are within your reach. Bidding wars can be frustrating so make sure you already deem the limits of where you want to draw the line for a certain property and whether you feel a property is worth the resale value at all. Remember, some people choose to list their properties just to see what they can get in the market right now even though they have no intention of really selling. Avoid houses that say "handyman special" and note that "cozy" is code name for "small". Make sure you take a sneak peek at your potential neighbors (ex. is their backyard in good condition or is it clustered), and consider the state of the house and if it was lived in by somebody else (ex. was this person a smoker and left smoker rings and yellow stains on the ceilings? Did this person have a pet?)

As the population increases and our square space on planet Earth is further claimed, sold, rented and bought, it is our duty to learn all that we can to make correct choices that will seriously affect our future. Currently, a lot of my friends cannot afford to move out of the city and are stuck in rental situations or are in situations where they live with their relatives or with their parents. Rental units are starting to become pricier and pricier and the square footage is becoming the size of half of my new walk-in closet. I took the move away from the metropolis to find affordable housing prices, and I hope you enjoyed reading the tips I have learned from my hunting experience.

Best wishes on your hunt, new homeowner