Kicking the Tires

Sorry for the delay between posts - things have been quiet, but they are moving forward.

I've been collecting real estate agent recommendations for a while.  Early in November I interviewed one particular agent and we started looking at homes.  The process has been extremely fun, extremely interesting, and extremely frustrating, all mixed together.

First of all, the agent: one of the things I liked was that he was a first-hand recommendation, from someone who had recently bought a home through him.  Most of my other names were from people who knew agents, or who had friends who had used agents.  Second, the agent is really friendly, with a great personality.  We met in his office and chatted a bit - what I was looking for, my timeline, my finances, but also talking about mutual friends, music, and so on.  So that was nice... I'm mainly looking for an agent, not for a friend, but if you're going to spend a lot of time with someone it really helps to get along with them.

My time frame is still extremely fluid; under my original plan, I still have about 4-5 months left to go, and I would be totally fine with extending that further.  Really, I'm talking with agents now because of my original schedule more than any specific burning desires; mainly, I want to be set up so that if something great comes along, I can jump right on top of it, and not need to waste time lining up an agent first.

So, when I had first reached out to the agent, my message (email, yay!) was along the lines of, "I'm looking for buying X in Y area.  This might be really premature, but I'm looking for a buyer's agent, and am wondering if you'd be interested in representing me."  He enthusiastically responded, and we set up a time to meet.

He managed to surprise me in our very first meeting by showing me an available property that I hadn't been aware of.  I've been running RSS feeds on Craigslist and Zillow for many months now in my target area, and had managed to convince myself that I was seeing everything that was for sale - not much, especially in my price range.  But the very first property he pulled off was something that looked like a perfect location, and while it was above my limit, at least the far-left digit in the price was correct.  He had also prepared about a dozen other properties from a wide range of geography, price, age and style.  I read through them all, and later told him that the first was the only one I was really interested in, but that I'd like to look at a few others if he had time, just so I could get a feel for what was available in the area.  I think I've mentioned before that I haven't been doing open houses, so I really don't have a whole lot of experience when it comes to looking at properties.

The very first place we visited was the one I was interested in.  It was cool, and also depressing.  As I was walking around outside, I realized that the street it was on was quite a bit busier than I had expected.  It's a few blocks away from El Camino Real, and when looking at it on Google Maps I had thought, "Oh, all the through-traffic will be on El Camino, so this should be quieter."  That wasn't the case, though... I'm not totally sure why it's as busy as it is, but a nearby grocery store may have something to do with it, and some people may just be trying to avoid El Camino.  The unit was on the first floor (although the first floor is above the garage, so it's raised a little) and faces the street, which is a shame - I don't think I'd be able to enjoy sitting out on the porch with a book.  On the inside, it was a better, though still a mixed story.  The agent did a great job at describing what I was seeing and pointing things out - a wet bar, electric burners (boo!), real hardwood floors, badly hung window, cracked molding, un-level floor.  Honestly, it was a bit overwhelming, though pretty enjoyable.  As people who know me can attest, I take a while to process new information, so a lot of time was spent just absorbing my surroundings.

From there we went and visited the other three places I had selected.  One was a HUGE three-bedroom condo that was built in the 60's.  It had things that I've never seen before, like an electric range that slides out of the wall, and four-pronged electrical sockets.  We saw a great but expensive condo in Burlingame.  And then we looked at a new condo development in South San Francisco, which was quite interesting.  All along I've been saying that I don't care about luxury amenities, that all I want is location and value, but I have to admit that I responded strongly to the all-new construction there.  (It wasn't crazy or anything, but did have really pretty wood, nice big windows, marble countertops, and so on.)  After the new condo, we stopped at one more place that the agent thought I should see, a nice, older, good-sized condo on a quieter residential street.

After the tour, I could definitely appreciate the benefits of working with an agent.  Other than the new construction, at each place he could use his Supra lockbox thing and let us in with the key.  It's extremely convenient to have that kind of access, to not need to worry about scheduling around an open house or dealing with other people who are there.  And, again, I might not have found out about that first property if it wasn't for him.

At the same time, though, I am now realizing what all the books say: "YOU are in charge of your home search."  Which makes sense; I'm the one who's spending the money, and I'm the one who knows what I want and what I don't want.  I really liked the agent, but I needed to remind myself not to get frustrated when he encouraged me to look at places that I wasn't interested in, or when he checked to see whether I could go above my maximum price.  He's doing his job, which is to find me a place and make sure the transaction goes through.  I need to focus on my job, which is finding the place that I want at a great price.

So, we'll see where we go from here.  Weirdly enough for this late in the game, I'm actually starting to look at Redfin - at a minimum, their web site has gotten crazy good and vaulted above Zillow as my go-to spot (though there is still an annoying registration process - thank you, BugMeNot!).  I realized after the fact that Redfin listed the property that I had missed from Craigslist and Zillow - since they're plugged into MLS, they have access to the same data that "real" agents do.  And, given that I've spent close to a year tracking prices and thinking through what I want, I have an increasingly loud and cocky voice in my head saying, "You should just go for it!  You know what you want, you have the Internet, you have all the time in the world... do it on your own!"  I do like the self-driven aspect of Redfin, which aligns nicely with how I approach everything else in my life.

Anyways, that's where things are for now.  As always, moving forward, but very slowly.  Huzzah!