You want to buy a new house, what do you do?

[Cavalierchaos]

I am curious to the most common methods people use to find a house to buy.

Do you just browse Rightmove, or do you drive around looking for For Sale signs, or do you speak directly with Estate Agents and be on their lists so they can recommend you properties? Or do you see properties advertised on social media...?

If you could let me know how you found your current house, that would be much appreciated!

Who drives round to look for houses?!?

Rightmove for us.

Probably nobody, I was just trying to think of various ways to find a house!

I have driven around looking for houses. Moving to another part of the country. Drive around to see if I like the area.

If it’s a new area to you, both drive and walk around the area.
Are the locals polite and friendly, do people respect the area, does it have good transport links, parking, can you walk to get a pint of milk all that sort of stuff.
Rightmove and Zoopla have so many good search filters that help keep your search on track. For example, I used to search using the local rail station postcode and look for something within a mile…

We've absolutely driven around looking at areas.

Before we managed to move where we are now we'd spent years on and off driving here and then aimlessly driving around in the same 2 square miles or so. It absolutely led to our shortlist of areas and a couple of definite NO streets, regardless of how nice a house was.

Actually looking for a house to buy though - Zoopla.

Zoopla. For a couple of years before we could actually buy so I knew what was going up and for what prices in the area we were looking at

Sign up with agents

You might be able to see something before it gets listed

Where I live, it's common not to list on Rightmove.

I'm signed up to Rightmove Alerts, plus our local regional equivalent to Rightmove and I'm making myself known amongst local estate agents. Property market is crazy in our area so it's fastest finger first!

We're getting a huge Centreparcs built just now and I think all the smaller properties are being bought up by people/landlords anticipating 1,000's of workers used to paying much higher rents needing to move to our area in the next year or so.

Rightmove, in a nutshell. Scan on a daily basis, multiple times a day if youre as anorak as me.

As others have said, if it’s a new area, get to understand the good/bad areas, internet searches can help although getting a feel by driving around is needed too.

Study flood maps, if necessary @ getthedata.com.

Look at crime maps too by the police, helps with eg antisocial behaviour.

Housemetric.com is good for looking at basic plot maps and pricing data which isn’t always clear.

And use street view and satellite maps in detail, to see what’s directly going to be on your doorstep as much as you can. You can learn a lot from these.

I foind mine on onthemarket before it appeared on Rightmove. Win

Re putting yourself on agent's list to get notification. I put my criteria to the agent, she signed meup, yet got updates purely up to budget so not what I was looking for. Giant agency, shite system

Rightmove

Also, index of deprivation maps if I don’t know the area. There’s generally a correlation between how “naice” an area feels and the index of deprivation. It’s not perfect though so it’s best to see the neighbourhood in person at various times of the day

Bit of a combination of all, plus, talk to people!
Tell your colleagues, friends, anyone you know you are looking for X in area Y, you never know who has parents / friend who want to move but think it might be too much effort to market their place, or who just haven't quite got to market yet.

Also, it depends if you
a) already know the area
b) how flexible your budget is
c) how time pressured your move is
d) how specific you are with what you are looking for

and probably lots of other things.

Once you have an offer on the house you are selling, or have a date you need to be out of your rental, you need to ramp up the 'looking' much more than if you are thinking 'we'd move if we saw the ideal next home'.

We drove around some areas and registered with about 15 agents, who rang us when they were taking on new properties. A lot of houses don't get listed on Rightmove, or anywhere else online, including our house when we sold it.

Picked an area, then went on Rightmove.
Also, register with estate agents. They will have properties on their books that are not on Rightmove yet.
The one I am in now was a builder refurb, and we got in there before it even went on the market.

If moving area, I visit the area, find the local shopping streets, park, etc. and spend some time there. If I like the area, I look online.

If local, I look online generally, but will specifically look up a house I see with a sign.

I picked an area, rented for 6 months and did a lot of walking. As PPs have stated having a good look around noticing things like the level of dumping and litter can give an insight to your potential neighbours.

What area is this?

To be fair, if I didn’t know the area I would visit to have a look around.

It can be quite competitive where we live for houses, so getting to know locals and asking on social media can help with properties before they go on the market. This is the only place I have ever lived that is like this though.

Look at Rightmove but then look at google maps.

I did drive round to look for the house I live in now as before Rightmove and Google maps existed.

There are plenty of ok houses it’s what’s around them that’s the issue.

Right move was my go to and the EAs send you properties to review

We moved locally but still drove around looking at streets

Thank you everyone! The reason I ask is because im thinking of selling my house with an online estate agent who just puts it on rightmove. I was wondering how much I'd be missing out by not having edtate agents ringing potential buyers on their lists etc.

When I was looking for my house, I just chose properties from rightmove to go and look at!

South Scotland