Shopping for Your New Home
Education,  Georgia,  Money Matters

4 Ways to Know You’re Getting a Good Deal When Shopping for Your New Home

Shopping for a new home in Atlanta, Georgia, can be complicated. You’ll have to balance the features you want with your personal economy and the housing market in specific Atlanta neighborhoods. When you’ll own a house for years, it’s hard to predict how this huge investment will fare over the course of your life. Though no specific formula exists for getting a good deal on a house, the right knowledge will help you prepare for the process.

What Do You Want Your Deal to Be?

Something that one person considers a good deal someone else might see as a nightmare. If you have little to no home improvement skills, the low price on a “fixer-upper” won’t make it a good deal, because you’ll just be paying a contractor to fix all the issues. Are you looking for a few specific features? Are you especially interested in new homes for sale in Atlanta? Determine what a “good deal” means to you, then work from there. After all, even if a house seems like a great deal, it’s not the right deal for you if you can’t afford it.

Look at Comparable Sales

Shopping for Your New Home

You want to find out how similar houses sold in the same area — houses that have the same number of rooms and overall condition, that were the same type of sale (foreclosures, equity sales, and the like), and that sold at the price in the listing. Figuring out what other people have paid for similar houses is the best way to know whether the price listed for the house you want is fair. Market value is complicated, especially in real estate, so this comparison is your most reliable benchmark.

Think About Market Conditions

Sometimes something as simple as the season can affect property values. During a freezing winter, people are less inclined to move, which means that house prices might be lower. Similarly, don’t go shopping for a home in Florida when the snowbirds are flocking down (usually between late October and early December), because you’ll be competing for great deals on houses with senior citizens who have money to burn.

Consider the Area’s Future

If you plan to own your home for a long time, what happens to the neighborhood in the next decade or two will affect the future value of your property. Is the city planning to construct a highway nearby? Your property value might decrease. Conversely, are more businesses opening nearby, bringing positive economic change to the area? That’s a good sign that the property values in the neighborhood will continue to go up. Even looking at how well neighborhood houses are selling can clue you in on whether the area is going to increase or decrease in popularity.

Don’t forget that you can discuss everything with your real estate agent, who can offer you a degree of experience you simply won’t find on the internet, helping you find a house that you can afford and in which you want to live.

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