Keep Your House Hunt Going During Lockdown

Have an “Ideal Home” checklist.

Use this time to put together a checklist of must-haves, deal-breakers and non-negotiable features that you are looking for in a property. This will help you when it comes to shortlisting potential properties and narrowing down your online searches.

Know your budget and your flexibility.

When house hunting, you need to know how much you’re able to spend and how flexible you can be. Using an online property affordability calculator can help you determine the estimated home loan you may qualify for. Knowing your budget will make shortlisting and online searching easier, but it’s important you leave some room for negotiation. The property may receive multiple offers and you don’t want to add financial strain on yourself to secure it.

Location, location, location.

When you are searching, think about your current lifestyle and how it may develop over the years to come. Does the location you’re looking at cater for this? You may want to consider putting together a checklist for the area and neighbourhood too, similar to your ideal home checklist, to help shortlist properties which meet the factors you want.

Set-up property alerts.

If you can’t find your ideal home that meets budget and location requirements, do not give up hope. We are able to set up email alerts for properties that are new to the market and, most importantly, meet your ideal home criteria. You’ll be notified as soon as a property is available to ensure you don’t miss out on a potential dream move.

Embrace digital and virtual changes.

With the lockdown, viewing properties in person is not possible due to social distancing. However, the service for many properties has been adapted to include video walkthroughs, video call viewings and virtual viewings. These digital changes are allowing you to experience the property and to get a feel for the house, with some sellers filming the local area so you can get a sense of neighbourhood outside the front door.

Learn to read a floor plan.

With a lot of information about a property being constrained to picture or video, being able to understand a floor plan could be vital in your search. Measure a room at home, such as a bedroom, living room or kitchen to gain a clear understanding of the spaces you’re used to. This will help you to compare the size of your existing space to the ones you are looking at.

Research and preparation

There is a lot of additional research and preparation that can be done to ensure you’re ready to move. Prepare your mortgage paperwork and use online mortgage calculators to work out what you may be able to get on a new mortgage. Check your credit rating, see if there is anything you could do during lockdown to improve your score. Find out how much your property is worth, this can help with budgeting and can be done with our video valuations or free valuation tools. Research legal firms and removal companies, to start budgeting for these costs. Take advice from estate agents both online and from video valuations on what additional work, within reason, can be done during this period to boost the value of your house.

As always it’s important if you’re looking to buy property, that you get all the advice you need and feel comfortable before taking the next steps. If you need any more information or are ready to begin taking the next steps and want some guidance on where to start, get in touch with your local Seymours today. https://www.seymours-estates.co.uk/branches