22 - Home Touring and Open House Tips

As a first time home buyer, you may not know some of the Do’s and Don’t of touring a home, whether that’s going to open houses or a private tour with an agent. We’ll go over 8 do’s and 8 don’ts about touring homes, and talk about some key points to help you make the most of your time and experience.

Do's

1. Bring your real estate agent to an open house. If you don’t have an agent yet, we can help. Reach out via our contact page, or we’ve partnered with Home&Money, go to https://homeandmoney.com/FTHB/ and we’ll help connect you with a local, vetted agent.
2. Research the area and neighborhood prior to the open house visit.
3. Take detailed notes about each house to help you remember your thoughts and feelings about each home.
4. Highlight any features that you like or dislike, repairs needed, etc.
5. Ask questions of the real estate agent to get a better understanding of what is included in the sale of the house and any additional costs associated with it.
6. Make sure you check the layout of the house, such as flow between rooms and door locations, in addition to looking at finishes and features.
7. Take pictures or videos of the house to remember your thoughts and feelings about each home. 
8. Do keep all children supervised at all times.

Don’ts

1. Don’t use the bathroom.
2. Don’t talk about the home, good or bad, while near the home.
3. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or make comments about anything that you don’t understand – the real estate agents are there to help you!
4. Don’t rush through the house – take your time and get a good feel for each room as this will help with decision making later on.
5. Don’t enter a home if there isn’t an open house or you aren’t with an agent.
6. You might be tempted to do your own inspection of the home.
7. A peak into a closet is fine, but don’t look in places like medicine cabinets or jewelry boxes.
8. Don’t enter closed rooms without asking.

Show Notes and Article: https://fthbpros.com/podcast/home-touring-and-open-house-tips/

Transcript

Phil: 0:00

As a first time home buyer, you may not know some of the do's and don'ts of touring a home. Whether that's going to open houses or a private tour with an agent. We'll go for eight dues and eight don'ts about touring homes and talk about some key points to help you make the most of your time and experience. Touring homes can be an exciting and essential part of the home buying process. It's important to understand the do's and don't. So let's talk about what you should do. When going to an open house, or if you're taking a private tour. So number one, bring your real estate agent to an open house. Don't go without letting them know and always go with them. If you can, they'll be able to research the home and give you insights into things like taxes and HOA fees. as well as make sure that it's eligible for the loan you're pre-approved for. They'll also be able to pull any disclosures on the home that may be private. Always use your age and to tour a home. Don't knock on doors, look through windows or call other agents to try to get a look. Your agent should be your resource for touring all homes. Now, if you don't have an agent yet, we can help reach out via our contact form@fthbpros.com. Or we've partnered with home and money.com. Just go to home and money.com. Slash F T H B I'll have a link for that in the description. And together we can help connect you with a local fedded agent. Now number two, research the area neighborhood prior to your tour. Drive the general area. Take it in. See how far your favorite grocery store or restaurants are? Is it far from the freeway on a busy street? There's some things your agent isn't allowed to discuss from neighborhood makeup to crime. You may want to do a little research on your own, but nothing beats driving the general area to get a feel for it. Take a look at how people have kept up their yards. What kind of general maintenance isn't being done on the nearby houses can really give you a feel for just the general pride of ownership in that neighborhood. The third, and this is one of the most important ones here. Take detailed notes about each house to help you remember your thoughts and feelings about each home. It's super easy to confuse different homes has an agent I'll have a printout of each home that you can take notes on. They'll have all the information on the home and then you could add whatever you liked. And didn't like about the home. Make sure you really take some notes, write things down. Trust me after a while the all blend together. The fourth one. Highlight any features that you like or dislike and repairs that you think might be needed or things that need to be changed? This is good to ensure that you don't forget things that may need to be done. Or might affect what your offer will be. Uh, after seeing a lot of homes, you'll start mixing them up. So make sure to write it down. Like I mentioned, in the previous tip. Now, this is a great area. To write things like the bathroom might need updating or the bathroom was perfect. The kitchen needs updating, or it was a smaller kitchen or the kitchen had an island that you thought was too small or it had older appliances. A lot of these, you can tell from photos. But it's really great to jot this down, especially if you have a list of things that are important to you, maybe the important things for you is a large kitchen with an island or a large living room or high ceilings Or a really nice upstairs loft area. This is one of those great areas here to jot down to say, this meets all of these, or it's missing this, or you're happy about XYZ. So really make sure you write that down. The fifth ask questions of the real estate agent to get a better understanding of what's included in the sale of the house and any additional costs associated with it. So ask questions about things you see, for example, If there's a spa in the backyard, when at those above ground spas. Maybe an above ground pool, is that included. Is there solar, you can ask if it's leased a loan maybe paid off, what kind of electric bills are they seeing with the solar? What's the HOA. And what kind of amenities does that include? How much is it? Is there large furniture, like a pool table or appliances, like a refrigerator in the garage that you'd love to have with the home. Ask if they're negotiable. And I'll give you hint. They usually are. A good general rule is that if you took the house and just turned it upside down, Anything that fell isn't included. Only the things bolted down are included. But it's good to ask about things like window coverings or chandelier's, you'd be surprised how often the seller thinks they can take it with them. Things like shelves or garage cabinets. I've seen go either way. So make sure to ask. And that's something that you'll want to put in your offer letter and make sure that it's included. If you definitely want it. The last thing you'll want to make sure about as well is things like plants. In some cases, a lot of plants are in portable or hanging pots. And the current owner tenant is planning on taking them with them. If you're excited about a lush backyard only to realize on move in day that now it's just dirt and all of those beautiful plants and flowers are gone. You're going to be pretty upset. The next one here. Number six. Make sure you check the layout of the house such as flow between rooms. DOR locations. In addition to looking at finishes and features, this may actually be one of the most important things you do really look how the home is laid out, how it flows. And if you think there could be issues with how you and your family liked to live. Remember this is one of those things that's nearly impossible to change. You can't change the flow of your home. Consider where the rooms are. If they're rooms near a washer and dryer, and you like to do laundry late at night, will that be an issue? How do you get from maybe a guestroom to the bathroom? How far is the kitchen from the bedrooms? Do you want to be near it or would you rather be further away? If there's bathrooms like a Jack and Jill do you like those? Do you like the general sharing of bathrooms between bedrooms? Or maybe that's something you don't like. And so really make sure you take a look at that. Really walk through the home, get a feel for it. Number seven, take pictures or videos of the house to remember your thoughts and feelings about each home. Always take photos unless the agent requests you not to, this is a good way to remember each home and visualize it again. Do your best, not to take any pictures where there might be personal items such as family photos. Or anything with someone's name on it, please respect their privacy. I always suggest to take photos of the outside of the home with the address number so you can match it up later. Using your phone with GPS tagging on can also help as it can usually tell you where you took the photos. So you can pull that up later. And number eight. Do keep all children supervised at all times, even though it may be a family home, all children should stay with your group and keep hands to themselves. There's a lot to tempt them many times there's playrooms or children's rooms with toys and items to entice touching, make sure they understand this isn't appropriate to touch. Or sit on anything in the home. All right, let's talk about the don'ts now. So we've got eight of these number one. I don't use the bathroom. It may sound funny, but even though it's a home, it isn't appropriate to use the bathroom at an open house. And especially when taking a private tour. Things like model homes, for example, may not even have working toilets, toilet. Paper or running water. So you'll be left with an embarrassment, for sure. Some homes may have just been remodeled and their main water is still shut off. So don't expect all toilets to flush. I remember one open house where a guest used a toilet, which had a leak and it leaked across the whole floor. Don't expect everything to work properly. That's what inspections are there for. If you'll be out for a long day of how shopping definitely plan some bathroom breaks. I highly suggest. Going to a Starbucks, every four or five homes. Use the bathroom, get a coffee and just plan for that. Number two. I don't talk about the home good or bad while you're near the home. Many homeowners have cameras in their home or at their front door and can hear what you are saying. Negative things or talking price can seem harmless, but always assume someone is listening. If you are within earshot of the home, rude comments can make the seller not want to accept your offer. Your attitude. Isn't a protected class. And if you're talking about money or price, Remember that if they can hear that, that actually gives them somewhat of an advantage over you when it comes to the negotiation side. Number three. Don't be afraid to ask questions or make comments about anything you don't understand. The real estate agents are there to help you. If you see an odd appliance in the garage that you don't know, its purpose, definitely ask often you'll see things like water softness or similar types of appliances. And it's good to ask if they're coming with the home and the maintenance costs associated. If they have wording on the flyers that you don't know what it means, definitely ask. Most agents are happy to answer those types of questions. And it's good to have that open dialogue with everyone there. Number four. Don't rush through the house, take your time and get a good feel for each room. Is this will help with your decision-making. Later on, this is one of the biggest mistakes. I see so many people just walk through quickly, but you may only get one chance to see the home before putting in an offer. It's a good idea to really take your time and look at each room. Visualize your existing furniture or maybe new furniture that you'd like to buy. Maybe you want that really big sectional. Will that fit in the living room? Do you like having a lot of people over, do you tend to gather all in the kitchen, how much room is there? This is your time to really get a feel for the home, suspend the time to get to know it. You can walk through the home a second time. If you want, while you're still there, don't limit yourself to just going into the room one time. If you have kids with you and they're being a distraction to being able to really look at each room, have your partner, or even your agent, keep an eye on them for a few minutes while you devote your entire attention to the walkthrough. Number five. Don't ever enter a home. If there isn't an open house or you aren't with an agent, sometimes open houses get canceled or they get entered incorrectly into the system. If it doesn't look like there's an open house, you don't see any open house signs or nobody seems home it's best to not go in. You should always have your agent with you so they can call the seller's agent to see what's going on. But it's better to be cautious. It's considered rude to look through windows or ask a seller to look at their home without an appointment. Don't knock on people's doors. Just ask if he could see the home, call your agent and have them set up an appointment. Number six, you might be tempted to do your own inspection of the home. Don't turn on any water fixtures or fans really do your best not to touch anything. Don't sit on any furniture or use any appliances I've heard stories of people wanting to test faucets only to find out that the fixture wasn't working properly and the water started leaking everywhere. Don't bring testing tools or gauges as the purpose of the tour. Isn't an inspection. But to get a feel for the home. It's good to take notes of things that look like they'll need repair, but it's not the time or place to test. I will say you could bring things like a measuring tape. If you want to measure the size of rooms or see if something might fit. I think that would be okay. But I really wouldn't be bringing things to, for example, test outlets, to see if they're working now in some markets, this may not be the same advice consult with your agent. I always err, on the side of caution, when it comes to touching anything in someone else's home. All right. Number seven, a peak into a cost. That's fine. But don't look in places like medicine cabinets or jewelry boxes. Now I say a peak and a cause it's fine. That's if the closet doors open, if they're not they're off limits, if a closet doors shut, ask permission to look inside. Don't open drawers and rooms or move personal items. If you suspect the sellers hiding things behind personal items, then make a note of this and have your agent bring this up. This would include things like cracks in walls or foundation related issues that someone might try to hide behind personal items. This can easily be uncovered via discussion, and you can ask for it to be part of an inspection. Take a picture of the suspected area. I jot it down in your notes. So you don't forget later. And last don't enter closed rooms without asking. In some cases, these are off limits. During open houses, but during a private tour with a licensed agent, you may be able to see this area. Some people may not have the ability to leave their home for an extended period of time for an open house. And so they'll stay in a single room. This is really about getting a feel for the home, seeing if it fits your needs and making sure you have a full understanding of what the home looks like in every area. By following these guidelines, you should be able to make an informed decision on whether or not this house is right for you. Remember. Ask lots of questions. Don't touch anything and keep your opinions to yourself until you can privately discuss it with your agent away from the home. I really hope that this helped make you feel more confident when you're touring homes. To learn more tips on home, buying head over to F T H B pros.com. Where we have all of our podcast episodes available articles, newsletters, home affordability, calculators, along with our Facebook group or lenders and agents can help answer your questions. Thank you for your support and happy home buying.