Step 6 to Buying a Home - Finding Your Dream Home

Now that we have built a solid foundation for securing the home of your dreams with a pre-approval letter and earnest money ready to go, you're probably very excited to start looking at homes!

One last step (and this should be a fun one!) before we start the researching the available homes for sale in Puget Sound, we ask our clients to write down your top 5 needs and a list of your top 5 wants. Needs should be the things you cannot live without and wants should be things that would make your life easier, but are not necessities. 

Some examples of needs could be:

1. Highly rated school district
2. Number of bedrooms
3. Garage space (if you have a lot of toys to store)
4. Updated and ready to move in with no major projects
5. Privacy and room between neighbors

A few examples of wants could be:

1. Marble bathroom floors
2. Quartz counter tops in the kitchen with an undermount sink
3. Horse shoe pits and outdoor fireplace in the backyard for entertaing
4. Dock for a ski boat on a smooth-as-glass lake
5. Equestrian arena for all-weather riding

After you've compiled your needs and wants, we'll get together and discuss what may or may not be available in Puget Sound. As you can imagine, finding the right home is often a balancing act during which you contemplate whether you are willing to give up a certain characteristic because a particular home has a feature that is something you've always wanted in your dream home or because the property is located in the best school district in the County. After we receive your final list, we'll create an auto-email saved search in the NWMLS, which will email you the instant a property comes on the market that matches your preferred criteria. Considering the NWMLS is the most accurate source of information on homes for sale in Western Washington, the auto-email saved search is the best way to ensure you get every opportunity to find and own your dream home.

Once you receive an auto-email notification that a new home has been listed (or a home's listing price has been reduced and it's now within your budget), we recommend doing the following:

1. Open the email as soon as possible and review all of the newly listed properties.
2. Mark the properties you love and would like to see with the heart icon, mark the properties that are partial matches with the light bulb icon, and select the trash can icon for properties in which you have zero interest.
3. If you have questions on a given property while you view the new listings online, please make notes 

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