Where to Begin Your Search

Buying a house is a huge step.  It's a huge commitment.  Up until now, I have been a renter, like most people.  Renting is great in so many ways.  You only have to commit to living in one place with the same roommates for 12 months.  Then, if you like the place, you stay.  If not, you move on.    I took full advantage of this arrangement.  In fact, there was a 5 year period were I moved an average of 1,000+ miles every year.

Buying a house is different. First, there is a 30 year mortgage -- 30 years! - that is longer than I have been alive!  Of course, you can always sell your house before the 30 years is up, but there are so many costs associated with selling (real estate agent fees, closing costs, moving expenses, etc.), that generally it is not cost effective to sell your house in the first five years of ownership.  While this post does not point you to the tools of getting over those commit issues, I will show you some handy tools for locating your perfect house.

Zillow is a handy-dandy tool that pulls data from all over and presents them to you in a user-friendly fashion.  Through zillow you can find newly posted houses, view photos (and sometimes videos of your favorite homes, compare houses that have recently sold in your area, and view the tax appraisal values of all the houses in the neighborhood. If you create a free account, you can save your favorite homes and get alerts when similar homes go on the market.

Unfortunately, Zillow is not perfect.  Since it pulls data from various sources, it sometimes get out of date information.  Local real estate associations typically maintain an up-to-date listing of the homes in it's area.  In Austin, go to AustinHomeSearch.com.  You can search by price, zip code,  current status (active, contingent, or pending) or MSL listing.  Plus, you can search for open houses.  However, if you are looking to build, you will not find builders on these sites.

Also, local real estate magazines are a great way to see what is on the market.   You can see what is on the market as well as how many houses have sold in the past few months and for what prices.  These are great for gauging market trends, but since they are print, you will not find the most up-to-date listings.

Open houses are a great way to see houses.  We have found that all the open houses occur on Sunday afternoons, so it is easy to see a lot of houses in a short amount of time.  As you see more houses, you will get a better feel for what you can get for your money (and what is important to you).

Once you have figured out what neighborhood you want to be in, drive around the neighborhood!. Drive around at different times of the day.  By being in the neighborhood you will get a better feel for the type of people who live in the neighborhood -- are kids playing in the streets, or are there college coeds heading to parties.  This will give you a better feel for the area and allow you to grab fliers for houses on the market.