Making the decision to buy a house is equal parts thrilling and confusing. Hopefully you have found a great, local real estate agent to assist you with all of your questions about buying a house and are moving into the fun part – going to see houses in person!

The actual home search can be very fun. Waiting to see what new listings might pop up every day in your inbox, browsing homes constantly on your real estate search apps, and being able to actually schedule a private showing and dive deeper into the home & how it might work for you.

However, when you are house hunting, it can be super easy to get distracted by all the different houses and pretty decor and lose sight of what you should be looking at as your primary focus. That’s why I’ve put together this list of three things you should keep top of mind during your journey to buying a house.

(P.S. – If you’d rather just watch a quick video with the same info, click HERE.)

PRICE

When you are looking to buy a house, you should not look above your pre-approved amount or max amount you are wanting to spend. You’ll end up seeing homes that you like and then will constantly compare homes in your desired price range to those homes and wanting them instead. The last thing you want to do is put yourself in a position where you spend so much on a house, that you can no longer afford the basic costs of homeownership maintenance, or have any extra money to do things you enjoy doing outside of your home. Stay in your budget, and I would even recommend looking at homes slightly below your max so you have room to compete if there are multiple offers happening.

LOCATION

It’s all about location. This is one of those things that you aren’t going to be able to change about your house, so it’s super important that you like the location the home is in. Make sure you’re comfortable with the neighborhood & general area, commute to work, and school district (if that is important to you). Again, this is not something you can change in the future – and if the home is in an area that is losing value year-over-year (depreciating), that can affect you negatively when you eventually go to sell the house in the future.

SIZE

Paying attention to the size of the home is definitely an important factor. If you don’t plan to stay in the home for more than a few years, then you may be okay going with a smaller home that fits your needs now. But if you plan to stay in your home longer or maybe expand who is living there in one way or another, size is something that needs to be a major consideration. Size CAN be changed to some degree with potential home renovations or building an addition, but if that’s not something you want to take on, look for somewhere that will better meet your current & potential future needs from the start.

There are a lot of things to consider when deciding which home is right for you, but in my opinion, these three are the ones that you should make a main focus!

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Hope these tips are helpful! Check out my other blog posts related to buying a house HERE.

Ready to buy a house in Pittsburgh, but not sure where to start? Check out my free resources HERE or contact me HERE!