If anyone has been following my posts lately you may recall that I recently began the process of buying a home.  Before we can buy a home we have to find a house that we want.  We knew we wanted a Realtor to help us with our search.

How, you may ask, did we select our real estate agent?

I want to say something totally epic and cliché here like ‘We didn’t pick him, he picked us’, but that would be a real stretch.  We definitely picked him and he wasn’t the first agent we’d met and evaluated.

That’s right, essentially, we interviewed Realtors.  I honestly think that everyone should do this.  I don’t know if there’s some unwritten rule of etiquette that makes this awkward or inappropriate.  If there is, someone please tell me.  I think you need to make sure that the real estate agent you end up working with is someone you want to work with – not someone you feel obligated to work with because you happened to meet them first.

So, when Levi and I first considered buying a house, we started attending Open Houses.  This was one of the easiest ways for us to not only see the inside of some houses in areas we liked but also to get to know different Realtors.

Flashback to five years ago.  We had just moved back to our home town after 4 years in Saskatoon.  We were in the process of selling our home there and were contemplating whether or not we wanted to buy again or just rent.  We met Chris Holm at an open house he was hosting in an area I always wanted to live in.  The home itself wasn’t what we were looking for but we instantly felt a connection with Chris.

He was friendly, came across as completely genuine, was around our age, and as an added bonus was using a Point2 Agent Listing Brochure for his open house.  (He gets extra points in my book simply for that!)

It turned out that we decided to hold off on buying a home right then and Chris understood.  He kept in touch, sent cards, sent gifts, and called and emailed us from time to time just to check in and see how we were doing.

Fast forward to 2009 and now we are more than ready to leave behind our smallish 1 bedroom apartment for a roomier home, with a yard (for a dog).  When we were pre-approved for our mortgage the first person I emailed was Chris.  We were so excited to finally be able to work with him.  Judging by his reaction, he was equally as excited to be able to work with us.

Feeling comfortable with our Realtor means we gladly shared our goals with him and he knows exactly what we are looking for in a house and, more importantly, in a home.

Chris isn’t a high-pressure salesman and that was something very important to us.  Personally, nothing scares me away more than a hard sell.

He didn’t forget about us after we first met him.  It was more than just doing routine follow-up phone calls and emails.  He’d call or email with a quick ‘Hello’ and see how we were doing.

Our Realtor understands our situation.  I believe he identifies with where we are at in our lives because he isn’t much older than us.  Yet, he has experience, he knows his stuff, and he isn’t afraid to get feedback from his Broker if more information is required.  That type of genuine openness and transparency is what really sold us on using Chris.  I want my Realtor to be frank and honest with me.  I want to feel like my Realtor is serving my best interests.  We really feel that with Chris.

So now that you know all about our Realtor, we can get to the super-fun stuff – house shopping!

We have already started to look at a few places and have more lined up.  I can’t wait to share with you our impressions of some of the houses we looked at.

Until next time…

We’ve bought and sold houses a couple times in the past but it’s been about 5 years since we sold our last home and have been renting ever since.  This feels brand new all over again.  I had no recollection of how complicated buying a home can be.

I invite you to join me as I share our experiences - from a consumer standpoint.   This should be a fun and exciting ride (and maybe just a bit stressful)!

So far, we’ve kicked off our adventure in home-buying by getting pre-approval for a mortgage with a lender.  I’ll be honest, dealing with money isn’t something I enjoy.  Crunching numbers is not my cup of tea and I’d much rather just ignore them completely.  However, the pre-approval process was relatively painless, with us just providing some of our basic information.  The lender did their thing and the following day we were thrilled to receive a phone call notifying us that we had been pre-approved for purchasing a home.

The phone call was followed by a detailed email from our mortgage specialist outlining all the terms and conditions of our mortgage, explaining exactly what we needed to do to satisfy the requirements of said mortgage, and a bunch of jargon I didn’t fully understand.

This is where having a good mortgage specialist or broker is valuable.  This morning I sent an email to our specialist with a list of questions a mile long.  It’s very possible that the documents he sent me already explained or answered my questions but I didn’t understand it.  He responded within a few hours with very detailed, clear, and concise answers and links to further information.  Now I understand the important details and can proceed with the home buying process with confidence.

So we have been pre-approved to buy a house.  We have money – well, financing anyways.  Now what?

Stay tuned…