Shopping around for a property starts online. But before you even set up a saved search, make a dream board of your ideal home. That’s not your dream home, but what you can afford to buy now. If you’re shopping for houses for sale as a couple do this together to make sure you’re on the same page.

Your vision isn’t just about the home’s attributes and it’s number of bedrooms, bathrooms and parking spots. It is also about affordability, school zones, commute, and a range of other factors. You will need to make compromises. Compare what’s important to each of you.

Find out how much you can borrow then go shopping. Set up a search that will bring back all new listings of houses for sale emailed to you.

Familiarise yourself with the area

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Get out and familiarise yourself with the real estate in the location you want to buy in. There may be streets where you don’t want to live, or those where you do. If you have children then you may want to be located near the best parks. Or if you commute, close to transport links. The more time you can spend out and about looking and talking to others the better.

You might want to include recently sold homes in the search. You can’t buy them, but it gives you a better feel for the market. The search can be refined on a whole number of other factors such as selling method, time on the market, floor area, land area, type of title, decade built, rating valuation, school zone, capital growth and more.

Getting out to view

Eventually you’ll have to get out and view. Search under Find an Agent and email them with details of what you’re looking for. Create a schedule and action plan for attending open homes. Click on the Open Homes tab on OneRoof to show what’s open this weekend and plan to view three or four.

To make the most of the open home, go armed with pen and paper. Make a checklist of what’s important to you including your needs and priorities.

Look at each room critically and don’t get wowed by the staging. You’re not buying the furniture and flowers. Conversely it’s easy to be fooled by tired old paintwork that could be ironed out with the money you save.

Watch out for structural issues

You also need to consider issues such as building materials, insulation, ventilation, rot, flooding potential, plumbing, drainage and other factors about the structural state of the building. Could it be leaky or have asbestos? Settled.govt.nz has a very useful checklist to take with you at: https://www.settled.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Resources/Check-lists/Checklist-open-home.pdf

Make sure you ask the agent if there are any known problems. Agents have to declare any issues regarding the property such as maintenance, water tightness, defective title and other issues.

When you’re at the open look at the reports available. These could include the LIM, property title, valuation or even a building report *. Ask the agent what the settlement date is and what the body corporate fees are if ti’s a unit titled property.

*Always make sure you get your own independent building report done.