Not long ago, no one would have been advised to purchase a property without seeing it in person. However, times change. With today’s modern technological tools, you could indeed buy a house online without ever having to leave your current property. Buying a house via the internet is best suited to people who want to move to a faraway location. But as people’s purchasing habits continue to switch to the internet, buying any home online may soon become much more of the norm. If you want to buy a house via the web, here is how to go about it.
Get Preapproved for a Mortgage
The first steps in buying a house online are the same as purchasing any property. But you will be completing all or most of your business with professionals like real estate agents and conveyancers virtually, rather than in person or over the phone. The first things you need to do are save for a down payment and get approved for a mortgage. It is much more convenient than ever before to compare mortgage rates online with live updates. So, when you compare mortgage rates online, you can much more easily and quickly find the best mortgage lender for your circumstances.
Find a Real Estate Agent and Start Searching for Houses
The internet has made it so much easier to search for properties. But you still need to engage the services of a real estate agent. The agent’s role becomes even more crucial when you are buying a house online because he or she will act as your eyes and ears. As you will not be viewing the house in person, it is essential you find a real estate agent who you can wholly trust and rely on. Once you have found a suitable agent, provide him or her with a list of what you are ideally looking for in your house, so the agent can begin tracking down the right properties for you.
Use Tech to Tour and Inspect Potential Houses
You may not be able to set foot in the property before you buy it if you purchase your house online, but you can do the next best thing by taking a virtual tour. Your real estate agent could offer you a real-time virtual tour or a prerecorded tour. The latter is a good way of first exploring potential houses, but if you are serious about buying a property, you should definitely do a real-time tour before signing on the dotted line of the contract. With a real-time virtual tour, you can ask the real estate agent to point the camera in hard-to-see corners, ask to be shown different angles and ask any questions that you have about what you are seeing. The agent should also do a good job of accurately and effectively describing how spacious the house feels, how tall the ceilings are, what the noise level is like, if there are any strong smells, and so on. You should also ask the agent to take you on a brief tour around the exterior of a property. Later, you can use Google Street View to explore the area in more detail. Once the virtual tour is over, be sure to discuss things further with the agent to debate whether it is the right house for your wants and needs.
Close the Deal
Once you find your dream house, it is a simple matter of closing the deal and handling all of the paperwork that comes with buying a normal property; the majority of which can now be completed online.
