My Tech House Hunt

I’m about to step off of the sidelines and onto the playing field. After a year as a real estate technology commentator, I’m becoming one of those people I write about all the time: the oh-so-elusive consumer. You see, my husband and I want to buy a house. We’ve picked our neighborhood and established the square footage and beds/baths we need. Now, we have to find “it” – the right house for us.

Obviously, this is already an emotional journey, but I’m going to make a scientific endeavor as well, documenting the role that technology plays in our house hunt. This weekend we drove through our desired neighborhood and spotted a few “For Sale” signs, so I think today is a good time to begin this column.

A Few Introductory Notes
We are already homeowners. However, we don’t want to list our current home until we’re sure we’ll find what we want. This is a reminder to all you agents that buyer leads are very often seller leads as well.

I also want to point out that, like many people, I did not begin my search online. We began our search by driving through our aspirational neighborhood and building castles in the air. Low home prices (and advice from trusted sources, as I’ll talk about later) were the reason we decided to see if we could make our dreams become reality. This is another reason that the first agent that we contact will be from a yard sign.