How You Can Use Technology to Find Your New Home

Compared to today, home buying used to be a slow, frustrating process with many setbacks along the way. Like many other industries, real estate now has technology on its side to make the home-buying process a much quicker activity that doesn’t add stress to an already stressful exercise.

Technology can be used in so many different ways for searching and purchasing a home. Some of those are described below.

Listings

The most obvious way to use technology as an aid in searching for a home is by letting the computer do the looking for you. Most real estate teams have sites like the one maintained by Mike McCann that help you narrow down your search.

You can select the type of property, number of bathrooms and bedrooms, and price range to make your search as focused as you like. The website linked above also has information on nearby attractions, which can be helpful to someone moving to the area from far away.

Redfin is another general website that shows various listings. It has a lot of other options to search, which means you can locate a house that meets your dream in seconds!

Navigation

Technology becomes helpful when you’re ready to head out to view and tour homes as well. When you’re trying to find an address, a smartphone with GPS is an easy way to navigate.

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Something really cool to try when you’re searching for a home is Google Earth. Type in the address of the home that interests you, and you can explore the street it’s on and the surrounding buildings and businesses.

Communication

Using the Internet for email, or a cell phone to send and receive text messages, are wonderful ways to speed up the communication process between the buyers and the Realtor. You can send an email or text message at any hour of the day from wherever you may be.

That’s far more convenient than waiting for a call or trying to reach a Realtor by phone, only to keep finding the agent is busy. It’s much easier to email back and forth so the other person can get back to you when he or she can.

Technology can also expedite communication through the end of the sale. If the buyers have questions about touch-up repairs, or they want to get in an offer quickly, their agent can reach the seller or another Realtor via cell phone or text.

Research

The last important way technology can be useful when buying a home is for research. Investigating the area and nearby towns around the home you want is essential, especially if the area you’re moving to is far away from where you live now.

A great resource for comparing one location against another is Zillow.com. If you type in two locations, the website tells you information such as populations, median income, and home values.

Another feature comes in handy when you make offer on a home. The website lets you pull comparisons so you know what similar homes in the neighborhood have sold for.