As you begin to peruse the home listings in your area, it can become overwhelming learning what to look for and how things may or may not make an individual property attractive. To assist you with making your way through the available properties and finding your dream home, let’s look into how to dissect new home listings in Atlanta.
Pricing
Chances are one of the first things that will catch your attention about any for-sale property in the new home listings is the asking price. Instead of taking that asking price at face value, you’ll want to do some research to help determine if it’s realistic and where you feel there could be wiggle room during negotiations.
The best way to scrutinize any asking price is to do some investigating on what agents refer to as neighborhood comps. This is done by searching through the closing prices on homes within approximately one mile of your targeted property that have similar features. If you see a wild difference in pricing, that could raise some red flags.
If the asking price of your targeted home is exceptionally high, ask yourself if there are any recent market conditions that could have inspired such a price hike. On the other end of the spectrum, an incredibly low price could mean the property isn’t in the best state, possibly has something to hide, or the owner could simply be trying to get rid of it very quickly for other reasons.
When looking at new home listings, you won’t be able to see any price decreases to show how motivated the sellers may be. However, you’ll get a listing of prior sales prices, which can inform whether or not the listed price is realistic based on any updates and changes the current owners have made.
Infrastructure
After you start getting into the finer details of what a property has to offer, carefully take note of everything related to the furnace, air conditioner, roof, and water heater. If there’s any way for you to learn the condition or age of any of these items, it helps you better understand the pricing and future viability of the home.
Another thing to keep in mind is checking in the listing’s photos to make sure each and every area of the home that normally would be covered by forced air climate control has access to fresh air from a vent. This is an important part of new home listings because you don’t want to overlook something so simple when purchasing a home only to discover there’s a major portion of the home that isn’t truly covered by any form of heating or cooling.
Location
You’ve heard that location is the most important part of real estate.
Look up where the property lies and how close or far it is from other places that are important to you. This could include your workplace, common shopping and leisure spots, or even relative distance to emergency services. Out of all of these locations, the school district in which a property is located can sometimes make or break its market demand. Chances are you don’t want to be living alongside a noisy interstate or shopping center.
Finding that sweet spot that keeps you out of the hustle and bustle, but not isolated from your normal life, is part of the balancing act of buying any home.
Calculate Your Monthly Payment
Taking everything into account, another stop on your dissection of new home listings is to run the numbers a couple of times to make sure each home you’re interested in is affordable for you.
When doing this, it’s a good idea to use the asking price as your loan principal and calculate any interest off of that amount as well. You’ll do this to assume a worst-case scenario where you paid the asking price and need to manage your finances to make things work. From there, add in the latest taxes (found in the listing) broken down into a monthly payment and tack on your best estimate on homeowner’s insurance.
Help Dissecting New Home Listings in Atlanta
If looking at new home listings in Atlanta confuses you and you want a professional guide to what you need to know, contact us today at (404) 977-5054!