5 Tips For A Great Home Search

ARE YOU READY TO START YOUR HOME SEARCH?

We Would Love to Help You!

Searching for your new home is one of the most important (if not the most important) part of the buying process. It's important to make sure that you understand the market and that you've explored all of your options. If you follow these 5 steps, you will feel very confident in your decision.

  1. Set Your Price Range

    Arguably the most important criteria for your home search is your price range. The best way to determine how much you would like to spend is to speak with a lender, who will tell you how much you can purchase based on how much you will put down and what you want your monthly mortgage payment to be. Once you know your price range, we recommend only viewing properties that you can realistically purchase at or under that price.
  2. Define Your Home’s Criteria

    We recommend creating a list of “must haves” and a list of “nice to haves”. When you look at homes online, only consider homes that have 100% of your “must haves” and find homes with as many of your “nice to haves” as you can. “Must Haves” are criteria like size, bedrooms, bathrooms, & year built. “Nice to Haves” are usually things that can be changed like type of flooring, paint colors, and other finish out.
  3. Consider Different Areas & Neighborhoods

    We like to cast a wide net at the beginning of your search and look at as many neighborhoods that fit your criteria as possible. We will usually set your geographic criteria based on commute, distance to entertainment, and/or schools. As your search progresses, we can usually take some areas/neighborhoods off of your list and focus only on your favorite neighborhoods.
  4. Organize Your Search Online

    It’s great for you to search online on your own, but we will also set up detailed searches for you through the MLS. The MLS is a central database of every listing any agent in Austin has on the market. It gives us a powerful search that allows us to set very detailed criteria and is the most accurate & current source for listings (and sold data) available. We will set up an online portal where you can save favorites & possibilities, make notes, and share all of this with us and/or your partner. This will help us organize your search and be as efficient as possible when we go out to physically look at properties.
  5. Take as Much (or Little) Time as You Need

    Most people spend 1-3 months searching for their home, but that’s not a hard rule. We’ve worked with buyers who have picked out their new home in a weekend, and we’ve worked with buyers who have taken 6+ months to find their new home. You want to make sure that you are confident that you understand the market and that you have explored all of your options. As soon as you feel that way, you will be ready to make an offer on the right home.
 
After you’ve found your home, it’s time to move forward with the buying process.
Click here to learn more about the Buying Process

WE WOULD LOVE TO HELP YOU WITH YOUR HOME PURCHASE!

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2300+ Client reviews!

I had the good fortune of meeting Ruth twenty-one years ago when she was my agent and I bought my first house. Her knowledge of Austin communities and surrounding areas was so helpful. Since then, she has been our realtor as we have bought and sold 4 houses. She has also helped us lease one of these houses for over 15 years. She’s very personable, professional, smart and her previous 14 year background in corporate finance and MBA is an asset to her clients. She’s very hard working and meticulous both in buying and selling. Her connections with trustworthy contractors, landscapers, stagers, , handymen, you name it, proved to be a great resource. She provides outstanding service and expertise throughout the entire process. Now that we’ve moved out of state and are looking for a house, we miss her tremendously.

Kasey Gilliam was a delight to work with! Our friends recommended her years after their home purchase and we will be doing the same with any friends or family that move to the Austin area. Kasey was prompt, professional, and direct throughout the whole process. We were working on a tight timeframe to find and close on a house, and Kasey was extremely responsive and helped us rapidly run thru many showings. Kasey helped us greatly filter down our preferences on neighborhoods and home types which was crucial to us quickly finding a home we loved. She helped keep us on schedule for our rapid closing by quickly preparing the various offers/documents/responses to the sellers. Overall we had an amazing experience and would highly recommend Kasey!

We had a fantastic experience working with Kasey Gilliam to buy our home in Austin and regularly recommend her to our friends and coworkers. Kasey has a great eye for details/neighborhoods and a very polite but direct manner of speaking which proved invaluable during our search for houses. She was very direct and honest about the pros and cons of homes we went to see, often finding issues of concern that we may have personally missed without her (like a nearby train that infrequently ran thru the area but she caught on video because she arrived early, or pointing out the possibility of traffic noise when we visited a house in off-peak hours). She was efficient and direct in negotiating and coordinating our closing process, and always promptly responded to our calls and texts when we needed her. Highly recommend Kasey Gilliam for any home purchase or sale in the Austin area!

Kasey and Kim were extremely helpful through the whole search. They were able to find my exactly what I was looking for, and did so before it was even on the market.

I am a first time home buyer in Austin. After reaching out to Bramlett about my situation, they took care of me immediately with collateral to educate myself not only on the market in Austin, but the milestones and steps it takes at a high level to purchase a home. Zero pressure, simply informative.

Danny De Luna was my realtor (ask for him if possible) and I started working with him in August with a proposed timeline of February/March to find something. I would send him Zillow links daily via email on houses of interest, and he gave me immediate feedback on what to look for and red/green flags. We eventually started looking at houses in October together, and he will tell it to you straight in these home walkthroughs. Trust is everything, and I felt like Danny treated each house from an unbiased perspective.

We closed on the home yesterday! There was never an ounce of pressure, doubt, or insecurity working with Bramlett. I will recommend anyone go to them for the Austin market. After this process, I will go no where else in future transactions. Thank you!

Had a great experience with Kasey and Kim at Bramlett Residential Real Estate. They listed, marketed, and sold my home in a difficult market, while maintaining consistent communication with me the whole time. They also solved the normal bumps in the road that come up in any big transaction like that.

Would highly recommend their team to anyone!

Our agent Trey was great from day one and checked all the boxes for what we were looking for. He provided us with all the insights we needed to understand the local housing market, he gave us a detailed tour of all the areas we were considering in Austin, and in the end he helped us get the best deal possible with the seller. Absolutely amazing!

Julie Stoakley from Bramlett Residential is amazing to work with. She is trustworthy, knowledgeable and makes this process very smooth. She examines the property very carefully and makes sure it is suitable for her client.

Lynn Wise is your go to! –
My family and I recently moved across multiple states over to Austin. Being that it was going to be a big move, we wanted someone we could trust and look out for our best interest, especially since most of the viewings would be virtually. After interviewing multiple people, we decided to work with Lynn Wise because she made us feel comfortable and she had the experience we were looking for. She was super responsive and made the process of looking for a home as easy as possible. She also walked us through the whole process and was by our side when we were dealing with multiple different builders.
Lynn is very well connected with the community. She even has her own Facebook page which as a result helped us find a home for our growing family. We can honestly say that without Lynn, we would not have found the perfect house. She also helped us get situated with an Airbnb while our house was finished and made sure to provide us with multiple resources we could use. I highly recommend Lynn to anyone looking for quality services.

My husband and I were making the move from Ottawa, ON to Austin, TX and had a million questions about the city, state, and country. We worked with Elizabeth Michael, who was able to give us the lay of the land and answer all of our questions (and then some!). Elizabeth worked with us to help find us a rental home that met our specific needs (e.g. 3+ bedrooms, fenced yard, dog friendly, 20-minutes from downtown, and within our price range). We couldn’t be happier with where we ended up!

She’s fantastic. The Buyer was even impressed and wished she was his agent. She was always offering a helping hand and wasn’t afraid
to get her hands dirty to make sure the house was in tiptop shape before the buyers saw the property. She goes the extra mile, above
and beyond.

Sally Pierce made selling my house an easy process for me. She delivered exemplary, personalized service every step of the way. She
exceeded my expectations with excellence and professionalism! (I am a repeat client as she also sold me the house previously.) Thank
you, Sally!

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