My First Property

How Many Houses Should I View?

Clearly in order to find a home, you must go and see a house or houses. But how many should you see... is one enough or should you always see several?

We all have heard stories of people who like to see about 50 properties or more before making a choice, whilst others are quite happy to go on instinct, and if the first property they see happens to be something they are happy with, then they will go with that.

So is there any right or wrong answer with regard to how many properties you should see? Ultimately the answer is that it really does come down to you and your personality type, and ultimately luck.

After all, not many people set out wanting to look at loads of different houses - which is time consuming and can get a little bit grating after a while (even for those who enjoy nosing around other people's homes!) If you see something that you really like first time around, then why bother looking around other houses?

The biggest objection to acting decisively seems to be that you might really like the first house, but when you see another house you will like that even more and find things that you really would rather prefer, and be grateful that you didn't buy the first.

It can be seen, then, that to avoid that being a possibility you need to go into a house view with a clear list of things that you want. If there are ten things you really want and property one ticks all the boxes, then there is no reason at all why you should have to see other properties. If it ticks just a few but you generally have an "it'll do" attitude to life, or simply don't like the hassle of going around looking at houses and don't have a clear idea of what you want, then you should go and see more properties, because it is tough to think of a more important purchase that you will make in your life!

Also the amount of research you do before viewing properties can make it easier to buy the first you actually see. You don't just turn up and look around these days - there is lots of detailed information about a house available on the details that the estate agent provides, usually together with several photos that show you many rooms of the house, if not all, so you can rule out a lot of properties simply surfing the estate agent's websites, in a way that wasn't possible not so long ago. Therefore even if you've only been to see one property, you may have already been able to rule out several others from the comfort of your own home simply by seeing that they don't conform to what you are looking for.

More first-time house buying articles:

  1. Costs of Buying a House
  2. How Do Mortgage Holidays Work?
  3. Fixed Or Variable Rate Mortgages
  4. What Can I Afford To Buy?
  5. New Home Vs Old Home: Which is Best?

 © Clarity Media    |    Copyright and disclaimer    |    My First Property     |     Insurance Details