DAVIDSONVILLE, ANNAPOLIS, EDGEWATER, ARNOLD AND SEVERNA PARK REAL ESTATE
Not everyone who is looking at the homes for sale in Annapolis needs to come up with a winner right away. If their own house has just been listed, they may reasonably estimate that it will be some months before the moving vans need to be summoned. Or they may be contemplating a move only if they happen across just the right place at just the right price.
If you find yourself in a similar kind of low-pressure house hunting mode, some basic truths about homebuying still do apply. Remember that when you finally do find just the right home at just the right price, all of a sudden you could find yourself in competition with others who see the same thing: the house they’ve been looking for!
The takeaway is that, even if your interest in today’s Annapolis homes for sale is strictly low-key, it’s prudent to prepare yourself as if yours is more of a front-burner quest. Although it could seem to be more trouble than it’s likely to be worth, most people in a similar “just looking” frame of mind won’t have gone to the trouble. In other words, when the Annapolis house of your dreams suddenly does come on the market, guess who’s going to be the one to land it?
Here are three checklist items that will position you to make the most of any Annapolis house hunt:
- Budget seriously. Without doubt, the place to start is by doing some financial homework. If you don’t know what you can comfortably afford, you can’t know which of the homes for sale in Annapolis should be competing for your attention.
- Get real. Unless you plan to be a cash buyer, having a mortgage lender on your team is well worth the effort. Keep in mind that being “pre-qualified” isn’t the same thing as being “pre-approved”—the more rigorous (and real) process. It spells out the precise size of the home loan you can expect to receive. It’s no surprise that sellers tilt toward prospective buyers who have bothered to get real!
- Widen the field. Once you have narrowed the field in terms of the price range you will be considering, you can improve the chances of finding a singularly appealing property by widening your search parameters. This can mean considering homes for sale in areas you hadn’t really paid attention to—or opening your imagination to include properties with features or architectural styles you hadn’t previously thought about. Especially in an active market with tight inventories, the open-minded approach is often the one that yields pay dirt.
Today’s low home loan rates are allowing surprisingly affordable monthly payments—numbers which can transform even the least motivated prospects into active house hunters. To see what that means in terms of the actual current crop of Annapolis homes for sale, give me a call!
DEBORAH LAGGINI, Long and Foster Real Estate, Annapolis, MD 21403
CELL 410.991.6560
EMAIL deborah.laggini@longandfoster.com
REALTOR, Annapolis, Davidsonville, Edgewater, and Surrounding Communities