3 Tips on Buying a Home

February 17, 2020

As the Canadian housing market continues to warm up, we are going to show you the top 3 tips on buying a home. It is a better time than ever for you to think about hiring the best realtor in Victoria, BC to help you purchase your dream home. But before handing over the cash for your new home, you first need to know a few important things about how to help ensure that the process of purchasing your ideal home is as easy as possible. Here are three crucial tips on how to easily purchase any house.

Open With an Oddball Bid

The art of bidding on a home is not an easy thing to learn, which is why it can be so helpful to have the top realtor in Victoria, BC on your side to be able to recommend a reasonable opening bid. It should be something that is reasonable and is calculated using the knowledge of the cost per square foot of other houses in the neighbourhood. If you make sure to do this, then it is far more likely that the homeowner will accept your opening bid or will at least be more willing to negotiate with you. 

 

However, one thing that most buyers do not realize is that they should be avoiding nice round numbers when delivering an opening bid. Although it might look nice on paper to see an offer of $520,000, it will make most homeowners think that very little thought was put into this offer and they will be far less likely to take it seriously. 

 

Instead, you should make sure to put in an oddball offer like $518,500. This will show the homeowner that you have clearly put a lot of consideration into this specific number and are not likely to go much higher because you believe this is what the house is actually worth.

Make Sure to Consider Hidden Costs

When purchasing a house, it can be easy to become solely focused on the price tag of the home and unintentionally ignore the other costs of owning the property such as utility bills, property taxes, renovation costs, and other similar expenses. 

 

If these are not factored into the total price of owning a home, then it can lead to you becoming house poor and potentially not having enough money to properly afford everything. That is why you need to make sure to sit down and crunch some numbers that include all of these hidden costs so you can make sure that you are truly able to afford the home that you want.

Avoid the Biggest or Most Expensive Homes on the Block

It might seem like it would be a smart move to purchase the largest or highest-valued home in a neighbourhood. However, when it comes to real estate, bigger is not always better. When purchasing a large home, it puts you in a position where you will have a much smaller group of people who are interested in purchasing it when it comes time for you to sell it. The same goes for the most expensive homes, which is why the $2 million homes in a neighbourhood where the average house price is $750,000 will usually be on the market a lot longer than the cheaper ones. 

 

Therefore, it might be better to pick the smaller or cheaper home in a nice neighbourhood, so that people will be more willing and capable of paying a price that is slightly higher than what the home is actually worth. 

By following these tips, you can help to make purchasing your dream home as easy as possible. You can also do this by enlisting the help of the professional real estate agent, Brad Maclaren.