If you're in the market to purchase a home you won't have a better opportunity to preview prospective properties than the mecca of all open houses, Nationwide Open House Weekend April 20-21! In it's 4th year running, there will be homes upon homes from coast to coast ready for your viewing pleasure for this event.
Consider it like a community garage sale, but the homes themselves are for sale on a much larger scale! There's nothing we like more than efficiency so the ability to see as many homes of interest in one fell swoop goes down as a major win-win in our book.
There are a couple of ways to find the open houses, check with your local real estate companies many of them will have a list of upcoming open houses. There are a variety of websites that will show you open house information as well. We're big fans of Zillow who has a special search feature for open houses, you just hover over the Homes link and click on Open Houses, from there you can specify an area. Just remember that more and more homes will be added to these lists as the weekend approaches so keep checking.
Here's the list for Colorado- http://www.zillow.com/co/open-house/
A few words of wisdom, if you're serious about scouting a property for actual purchase, unlike the looky-loos, (and we all know there are plenty of looky-loos wanting to canvas what their neighbors are really up to behind closed doors or those wanting a legal sneak peek at how the 1% live) make sure to do your due diligence ahead of time and get, at a minimum, a pre-qualification letter from your mortgage lender (even better get pre-approved). That way you can evaluate the home comparing your needs/wants to what you can realistically afford according to your lender and be prepared to make a legitimate offer as soon as you can. Buyers that have done their homework ahead of time will be in a better position to get what they want as an offer from a party that is already pre-approved is highly attractive to the seller. Keep in mind that since this is such a big event there will be a lot of people eyeing your favorite property, if it meets your needs your best bet is to act expeditiously!
Of course all of this can be explained in further detail by your real estate agent, it is most definitely in your best interest to secure a broker to handle the purchase of real estate. There is a lot of red tape involved in buying/selling real estate and the stakes are high, a lot of money on the line. While plenty of folks think they can easily handle the process themselves and save a little bit of money I can assure you that there can be some major bumps in the road and it is easy to get in over your head.
For all of our Colorado friends needing assistance, call us to speak with our in-house associate broker, we're happy to help. And don't worry we aren't here to rope you into a deal, we didn't attend used car salesman training, it's not our style and we find it just as repulsive as you do.
So head on out there early, you wont find another opportunity to get this kind of inside info. Get your map together, do some research a-la Google of the addresses you like to get an idea of the property and it's condition, perhaps print out a sheet of each home you want to see, and once you get there ask questions! Get as much detail as you can. And for all of the looky-loos with no interest in the home at all, at least give some feedback to the realtor on what you saw, that would be the nice thing to do!
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