“Sometimes you have to shop around to get a fir m handle on what you like — and dislike — and what your market has to o ff er,” Sager writes. “Don’t think of it as wasted time if it takes a while for the right house to appear; consider it time well spent honing your house-hunting skills.” Yet other buyers just can’t fin d the right home for them, even a ft er plenty of online research, checking out home a ft er home, for months or years on end. One couple, Lynne Freda and her husband, found themselves in this situation, and ended up buying a home that wasn’t even for sale. And this isn’t an uncommon experience. Freda just couldn’t fin d anything they wanted a ft er an extensive and exhausting and time-consuming house-hunting process, until their real estate agent realized the listings of homes for sale were just too limited. One day, the couple was driving through an area with their agent, and suddenly Freda’s husband saw a house and exclaimed that it was “the one” — but the home wasn’t listed or on the market. “ Th e real estate agent said she’d sold the house to the [current] owners and o ff ered to check in to see if they were ready to move on,” writes Sager. Th ey discovered that the owners were thinking about moving because the husband got a new job o ff er. Freda and her husband took a look inside and out and were sold, gave an o ff er, and bought the home. Don’t settle for something that’s close to what you need. “If you spot your dream house, but it isn’t for sale, it never hurts to ask,” Sager reports. 45
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