If you have ever looked for houses for sale, you’ll know there are multiple options out there. In fact, there can sometimes be too many for you to make sense of! Everyone agrees that the best way to find a home is to head online and look at the various property selling websites. This way, you can view loads of listings all at once, quickly going through the good and bad options. Eventually, you want to reach a stage where you have a shortlist. This list should include a handful of properties that meet your needs, making them the best options for you to consider. From here, you can start viewing the houses on your shortlist and deciding which one is the one for you. As such, you need to think about how you can create this shortlist. What is the easiest way to narrow down your options and pick the best from the bunch? This is where online property selling sites come in handy, as they let you use filters. You’ll find a plethora of filters at your disposal, but these are the main ones for you to utilize to find your ideal home short list:
Min & Max Price
Before we go into detail on these filters, just note that searching for the location of your home doesn’t technically count as a filter. Well, it does in a way, but it’s more of a thing you have to do when you’re on these websites. Also, some sites with real estate for sale are specifically in one location, so you have to use filters to narrow things down. Anyway, once you have chosen the location you’re interested in, you can proceed with altering the filters.
Consequently, the first place to start is with your price range. It could be argued that this is the most critical of all filters, removing many houses from the search. The max price is the more significant figure, capping what you are willing to spend on a house. Clearly, your maximum price will be based on your budget. So, before you do anything else, make sure you figure out what you can afford. Once you’ve done this, you can fill in the max price as a filter.
Now, you can actually carry on without altering the minimum price at all. Your results will be more condensed if you set a minimum price, but it’s hard to decide what to set it as. A good way to do this is to look at the results you’re getting, then figure out the average price of your ‘dream’ home based on these results. For instance, if you want a house in a certain location with 4 bedrooms – and they’re all above $400,000 – you can set your minimum price to something like $300,000.
Number of Bedrooms
After the price, you need to consider the number of bedrooms. For many homeowners, this is a huge deal. The number of rooms is quite important, but most houses will have at least one kitchen and bathroom by default. We will talk about other room filters later on, but the bedrooms are the most significant thing to focus on.
Why? Because you need enough bedrooms to contain your whole family and live comfortably. If you’re a family of five, you ideally need four bedrooms at the very least – one for the parents, one each for the children. Now, you could entertain the concept of sharing bedrooms, but this ventures into looking into the future. Kids can share a room with no problems, but do you want teenagers sharing a room together? You have to think about what you’ll do as your family grows up. If you intend to move home again before this becomes an issue, then you can sacrifice a bedroom or two and make your kids share.
Either way, this filter can get rid of so many homes that simply don’t fit your demands. It stops you from seeing a house at a good price, only to realize it has a bedroom less than you need!
Type of Property
Another hugely significant filter that makes your life so much easier. Think about all the different property types out there: houses, apartments, townhouses, condos, etc. Realistically, you have one, maybe two, types of property that tickle your fancy. Most people are looking to buy a traditional house, meaning you don’t care about all the apartments and other things for sale.
So, setting this filter to the types of property you’re interested in can narrow down your results. Seriously, you’ll be amazed at how many properties leave your search results when you add this filter! Don’t waste time seeing properties that won’t suit your needs; focus on the type you want.
Distance From Location
We spoke about choosing the location when searching for houses. Well, you can actually use a filter that narrows or widens your search – depending on your needs. The distance from a location basically refers to a radius around a specific point on a map.
Let’s say you search for houses in a specific city. You can set a filter to only look for homes within this specific location, or you can open it up to houses within a 1/4 mile radius, and so on. It basically deals with how picky you are, but it’s a good option if you have hardly any homes fitting your dream description within a specific location.
Number of Bathrooms
This is at the end of the list as it’s an optional filter some people don’t care about. If you’re hell-bent on having a home with more than one bathroom, you need to use this filter. It can help you find houses with the desired number of bathrooms to meet the description of your dream home.
No doubt you will find loads of other filters on a property selling website. The ones mentioned above are the main ones to worry about, helping you cut down your shortlist. Feel free to also use keywords as a filter – type things like ‘en-suite’ if you want an en-suite bathroom, etc. After applying all of your filters, you’ll finally have a pool of houses that meet your demands, letting you create a list to view!
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