Finding a home is a Team Effort

All buyers have different styles for searching. For some of my buyers, they want me to call them as soon as a new house comes on the market. So, every morning, I check the new listings, search for sale by owner sites, and listen to voice mails from office REALTORS to determine if there are new office listings. Then I call with a description.

These same buyers ask me to drive around certain neighborhoods that they've targeted, in case a "For Sale by Owner" sign or an office exclusive listing pops up. I also check the newspaper for ads. I once helped clients who wanted Burlington south end, exclusively, look for about nine months. One Sunday, I looked at the real estate section and found a For Sale by Owner advertised. I called the seller up, we went to see the house, and we wrote up an offer. After nine months of looking, we all knew it was the perfect house for them.

Other buyers want to be placed on an automatic email service of new listings so as soon as new homes come on the market, the listing shoots into their email with photos and details. The address is there so the buyers can drive by. The computer savvy ones just put the address into Google, choose the street view and voila (a scary voila) they can see the house on street view. There is a little Google man that can be placed on the street and with the drag of the mouse or the press of an arrow, he walks down the street. Wow! I practically expect someone to walk out the door and get the morning paper, but trust me, this is not a live feed!

The best combination is team work. Most of my buyers these days search the internet constantly. And I mean constantly. Employers beware, if the monitor is facing away from your watchful eyes, your employee searching for a house is possibly on Realtor.com or even better, on Ericsonteam.com! As soon as a new listing comes on, they see it. Here's the conversation: "Karin, a house just came on in Burlington on XYZ Street. I saw the pictures and it looks great. When can we go see it?"

"Let me open my MLS," I say, "and see what it looks like." I access my MLS, and there it is, sometimes 1 day on the market. "I just checked 30 minutes ago," I say, "and it wasn't there."

"I checked five minutes ago." they say, "and it wasn't there, but now it is."

We go see it at lunch and it's perfect. We're the first ones in. And since they've been looking for awhile and have compared houses and prices, they know if the asking price is fair.

Sometimes I see the perfect house, sometimes my buyers see the perfect house. It's all about style and results. It's team work!