Last week in a post I made a passing comment about how we sometimes show people 50+ homes before they find the right one. My comment elicited this reader comment:
Josh: Oh my god. People look at 15-50 houses? Juan and I have only looked at 2 or 3 when we were shopping. I would think it would be challenging even finding 50 homes on the market meeting very limited criteria (school district, bedrooms, bathrooms, style, etc.). I think I am much more of a look-online-and-go-see-only-to-make-sure-it-actually-is-what-I-think-it-is. You guys must be very very patient… I love to look at homes, but 50? Wow.
This comment got us talking about how many homes we typically show people before they find the one for them. We both agreed that our buyers typically look at between 15-25 houses before they’re ready to make a decision. Looking at 15-25 houses can take 2 weeks or several months. It really depends on how specific the search is and what inventory is available.
How can someone find 50 houses to see? It’s actually pretty easy. For example, we help a lot of people looking in West Hartford. If you’re a first time buyer looking in West Hartford and want a minimum of 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths and a 1-car garage between $245,000-$355,000 and you don’t need a specific school district, there are 61 houses available right now that meet those criteria. So even if you pick just some of these homes to see, over a period of a few weeks or months there will be new matches. Depending on how picky you are about condition, amenities, location- you can eventually approach that 50 number.
We’ve only had a few clients that have seen 50 or more houses with us. They are typically clients that are relocating to the area from out of state. These buyers visit for a few days and go on marathon showing tours. We’ll show these people 15 houses in one day. They sometimes look in multiple towns and have a wide search criteria, so there are plenty of houses to see. The purpose of visiting so many houses usually is to give them a sense of comfort about the market. By seeing many houses they are able to learn the market and it makes them more comfortable making an offer on the home they finally choose.
We have other buyers that see more than 50 houses before they make a decision, but we don’t always show them all of the homes. Some of them enjoy going to open houses on Sundays, so they’ll see many houses that way. If they are serious about looking we’ll tell them not to wait until the open house though. We wouldn’t want them to miss an opportunity if the house comes on the market earlier in the week and we think that it may meet their needs. As we like to say, if you snooze, you lose. We’ll touch base with them to schedule a showing shortly after the house comes on the market.
Finally there are people that just like to window shop. I’m not sure I would really call them buyers. It’s not clear if they will ever end up buying anything. They may see 50+ homes, but it’s usually over a span of many months and sometimes years.
Now, are we advocating that you go see 50+ homes? Heck no! Like Josh said, we are actually fairly patient but that’s a lot of houses to see. After we’ve seen 5-10 houses with a buyer we’re pretty much in tune with what they would like in a home. From there, we can screen the remaining properties that meet their search criteria on paper, we know what won’t work for them for one reason or another- condition, layout, location, etc. When new properties become available we can use the background info we have to determine if it’s worth a visit for our buyers. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. They typically appreciate the screening that we do for them because most buyers don’t want to go see 50 houses either.
When it comes to your home search, we’ll show you as many houses as it takes. We realize that every buyer is unique and has differing levels of comfort with the market based on their previous experiences house hunting and whether they’re from the area or not. The end goal isn’t to see the fewest or most homes, it’s to find the one that’s right for you. Most people know it when they see it.