As much work as it's been - and still will be - to get my condo show ready, it feels like searching through listings of what's available to buy is just as much work. Really, it's not. One week compared with two hours (so far this week). But ideally I'm only getting my place ready to show once. This is the second time I'm going through listings to find homes I want to see, which will be followed by another round of touring Ann Arbor viewing these homes. Which likely will be followed by a third round. Let's hope not a fourth.

Side note: The first round only produced one home I'm interested in, but two or three neighborhoods I'm interested in. That one home has a couple... quirks, shall we say, that neither myself nor my realter has information on yet that is keeping me from jumping on it.

Yes, it's a buyer's market. Which while supposedly very good for a buyer, also means a lot more work for a buyer. And not just the buyer's realtor. There's *so* much out there that the buyer has to be more involved in narrowing down the field of options. It means getting picky. But no so picky as to possibly miss the right home! How do you walk that line? Spend more time visiting houses? Or trust the picture and blurb you can read on the internet?

Advice for sellers: Put more than one picture in your listing. I've found myself literally saying "Ooo" out loud as I look at the pictures beneath a listing that I might otherwise have dismissed from the raw statistics. Especially DO NOT let your home be listed without any pictures at all! Only one listing have I gone back to looking at when it finally got a picture up, and that was completely by accident.

The above goes for me too, when I get my condo up on the market.

Labels: Home Buying