First Time Homebuyers Tips

Hello Everyone,

Today I wanted to share some tips for the first time home buyer.

Benefits for a First-Time Home Buyer

You should buy a home. That’s what you’ve been hearing from friends and family, right? So, by now you have likely already weighed the benefits and decided that home ownership was the best decision for you. That’s a major hurdle now passed. You are focused and certain.

Defining Search Parameters for a First-Time Home Buyer

Almost 80% of all home searches today begin on the Internet. With just a few clicks of the mouse, home buyers can search through hundreds of online listings, view virtual tours, and sort through dozens of photographs and aerial shots of neighborhoods and homes. You’ve probably defined your goals and have a pretty good idea of the type of home and neighborhood you want. By the time you reach your real estate agent’s office, you are halfway to home ownership.

How Long Should It Take to Buy Your First Home?
In seller’s markets, often I show only one home. After all, how many homes does one family need? A few buyers will look for years, but buyers who do that aren’t motivated. A motivated buyer will find a home within two weeks. Most of my buyers find a home within two days.

Good real estate agents will listen to your wants and needs and arrange to show only those homes that fit your particular parameters. Your agent should preview homes before showing them to you as well.

How Many Homes Will a Home Buyer See?

Studies show that your memory dramatically improves after consumption of carbs and slows upon consuming sugar. So, lay off the soft drinks and have a hearty meal of carbs before venturing out to tour homes. The average number of homes that I show to a buyer in one day is seven. Any more than that, and the brain is on overload. Therefore, don’t expect to see 20 or 30 homes; although it’s physically possible to do so, you probably will not remember specific details about any of them.

Making the Selection To Buy a Home

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I generally know which home a buyer is going to choose, and I suspect most other agents operate the same way. It’s an intuition. But I make it a practice not to steer buyers, and I insist that buyers choose the home without interference from me. It’s not my choice to make.

Real estate agents are required, however, to point out defects and should help buyers feel confident that the home selected meets the buyer’s search parameters.

Our Office works one on one with first time homebuyers to ensure a stress free home buying process. Please give us a call to set up an appointment today!

Sincerely,

Scott Myers, Century 21 Scott Myers, Realtors
(210) 479-1222

End Of Our Trip To Northern California

(This picture is where the Pacific Ocean & the Big River join)

Hello Everyone,

This will be our last blog on the trip that Joan & I took to Northern California. The intention of these blogs were not to bore you with the details of our trip but to give you some ideas in case your planning a trip.

The last phase of our trip was Mendocino California after 3 nights in Healdsburg at the Honor Mansion. The road to Mendocina is Highway 128 and I must say I have never been on a road or highway like that in my life. It was a pretty neat thing to experience, however you must be very careful because of the winding road, sharp turns, not to mention the steep cliffs that you can fall over. I personally did not mind but my wife Joan did not have a great experience as she held on to the grip above the passenger seat for dear life.

It was a very pretty to drive to Mendocino highlighted by the beautiful Red Wood Forest that you drive by along Highway 128. The Red Wood Forest blocked the sun out so much that you almost needed your headlights in broad daylight to see well. During the drive from Healdsburg to Mendocino, you pass through the Anderson Valley which is full of wineries, perhaps the most noted one being the Korbel Winery. Joan and I stopped to visit and had tastings of wine and some champagne.

Back in the 1960’s Mendocino was known as a hippy community and it is still that way to some extent. You still see people in the town that were part of the hippy generation that are now in their 60’s & 70’s. You could tell at one point they were young hippys. So overall it is a different experience to witness. We saw a few places on Highway 128 where they make marijuana for medical purposes.

When we arrived in Mendocino, we went to the Stanford Inn and that’s where we stayed for 3 nights. The Stanford Inn was more like a rustic kind of lodge than a hotel, and had a very large room with a nice balcony overlooking a hilly view of the Pacific Ocean. Kayaks and canoes are available for use and rental on the Big River, which is actually an estuary right behind the Stanford Inn. Just behind there is where the Big River and the Pacific Ocean join. The beach along the Big River is nice and you would see people camping and and having a great time. We had a wonderful walk on the beach there on a chilly day. It is a very deserted beach. The Stanford Inn is entirely Vegan- all of the food is entirely plant food and vegetables-no animal food whatsoever. The Vegan food was really not suitable for our particular taste but I’m sure there are many people that would find that very appealing. Breakfast was included in the price of the room, however since the Vegan menu was not appealing to us we ate no other meals at the Stanford Inn. Overall at the Stanford Inn we were very happy with the service and the accomadations.

The town of Mendocina is very beautiful with wonderful views of the Pacific Ocean nearly from anywhere in that very small town. Mendocino has small shops to visit that you can visit all in one day and Joan found a lovely bracelet that she bought and just loves. She has not taken it off since we have been back. There were really not too many restaurant choices to choose from in Mendocina. The first two nights we ate at the Mendocino Cafe which was very delicious, and I would recommend you have most of your dinners there. On the 3rd night we ate a very tasty Pizza Place. I don’t recall the name but it was the only one in the town.

While in Mendocino we took a short 15 to 20 minute drive to Fort Bragg, California which is a larger town than Mendociono. It had a very nice but small indoor mall. Also, Fort Bragg is known for a beach called the Glass Beach. The glass refers to small pebbles formed by volcanic activity. I climbed down the rocks onto the beach just to feel and see what some of the pebbles looked like. Joan watched since she did not want to climb down the jagged rocks to get down to the beach.

The following morning it was time to leave Mendocino, and we drove through San Francisco to a town called Millbray, which is near the San Francisco airport. We wanted to stay at a hotel near the airport because we had an early morning plane to catch to head back home to San Antonio.

I would like to warn everyone that it is not a great idea to cross the Golden Gate Bridge during rush hour as traffic was backed up for about 3 miles.

We drove through heavy traffic in San Francisco and finally made it to Millbray. We found a wonderful Vietnamese Restaurant. I apologize, but I cannot remember the name of it but we did see a long line out the door, so we decided to try it.

The following day we departed and flew back to San Antonio, and it was the end of a very memorable trip. Feel free to call me or email me anytime if your considering a trip like this and I will try to be helpful. Thank you for reading these blogs,and on our upcoming blogs we will get back to topics that are real estate related.

Sincerely,
Scott Myers, Century 21 Scott Myers, Realtors
(210) 479-1222

Healdsburg, Wine Country

Hello,

In our last blog I discussed some great information about our recent trip to San Francisco that Joan and I hope you enjoyed.
From San Francisco, we rented a car and we drove to Healdsburg in Sonoma County. Two exits past the Golden Gate bridge, we stopped and drove through a lovely town call Saucelito that I had been to years ago and really enjoyed. One thing I remember is on that Saturday we drove through the town we saw many, many bikers. Traffic was a bit slow because of the bikers, however we enjoyed the beautiful scenery.
From there, we drove up Highway 101 to Healdsburg and we stayed at a fabulous bed & breakfast called Honor Mansion which was named after the family that built the home in 1883. We heard about this place on Trip Advisor and have wonderful things to say about them. First of all the people and the staff there were fantastic and they really did a great job of attending to our needs.
In the Honor Mansion there are 13 units availalable for you to choose from. Four units are in the main house and the other 9 units are larger, and are spread around the property. I have to say it is a beautiful property with swimming pool, croquette, tennis and other games. Everyday at 3pm they put out wine for everyone followed by hors d’oeuvres from 4pm to 5pm. We stayed in the Camelia room which was a nice size. The only drawback was since the home was built in 1883, there were no bathrooms. The present owner made one closet into a shower and the other closet now has the sink & commode. Also, the Honor Mansion recommended restaurants for us and even booked us our reservations which was very convenient for us.
The first night, we had a fabulous dinner at an Italian restaurant call Catelli’s which is located in Geyserville about 8 miles north of Healdsburg. The second night we had dinner at a restaurant called Dry Canyon which is owned by a celebrity chef named Charlie Palmer which was his first restaurant. Now Charlie has a few other restaurants one in New York and Dallas. The third night in Healdsburg we had dinner in the business sector at Willie’s Seafood Restaurant. Joan and I ordered about four different tapas and kind of shared and tasted each others tapas.
The most impressive winery was the Farrari Carana Winery which we visited on our second day in Healdsburg which reminded me of a French chateau. The grounds and gardens were almost as significant as the winery itself. As you know if you’ve ever been wine tasting before, you are limited to small samples, but it was fun because we had many wines to taste and overall had a real good time.
We also did a lot of walking in Healdsburg which I have to say was very beautiful and charming and quite relaxing. The temperatures were very cool and the pace of the town was very moderate which was great.
Thank you for allowing me to share the second leg of our trip with you, and the next blog will finish off with our trip to Mendocino.

Sincerely,
Scott Myers
(210) 479-1222