Slouching Towards Yuppiedom

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• Actually that should read "In Which the Redhead the and Accordion Guy Search for a House"

  Don't worry. You'll get the hang of it - dw

• Open Houses are one of the worst ways to look at a house. You don't get the full attention of the realtor, and when you do want to ask a question about a house, you're going to have to wait for the couple ahead of you to finish their questions.

  My recommendation is to find a realtor who will work for you. A "buyer's agent". That person doesn't need to know everything about the neighborhoods you're looking in (you should be able to provide that), but should be experienced in buying and selling houses.

  You give your agent the rough parameters of where you want to look ("an area bounded by Dupont on the north, the Humber River on the west, Parliament on the east and the lake on the south") and information about your finances. That agent should:

  1 - point you to a mortgage agent who can help you secure financing. The first thing you want are solid numbers on what you can afford to buy. Don't worry about getting approved just yet, though.

  2 - send you both emails during the week of listings that might fit your criteria. From these, you'll pick up to six places you can take a look at on a Saturday. Also, you can help tweak the parameters so the search results are better. Three houses per weekend was my limit after an initial flurry of looking at a lot of stuff so I could figure out what I wanted.

  3 - show you your choices on your schedule, preferably on a Saturday. The realtor will have an open house to give on Sunday, and you'd rather be relaxing then, anyhow. Look on Saturday, and you can maybe yoink one of those houses the day before the hordes tromp through it.

  My experience buying was in the US, and I'm sure some things are different up there in the land of back-bacon and toques, but having an agent who was working for me, rather than for the seller made it possible for me to find a darned nice house, plus his comments to me during negotiations probably saved me $10k, if not more. And here in the US, the buyer's agent's commission still gets paid by the seller. If you don't have a buyer's agent, the seller's agent gets 7%. If you've got someone working for you, they each get 3.5%.

  Good luck!

• Agreed, but you're assuming that it's the only means we're taking to go house-buying. We're actually in the process of lining up an agent.

  The open house visits are largely a chance for:

  a) Wendy to see what houses and neighbourhoods here are like. Remember, she's not from Accordion City!

  b) Us to see what houses that aren't selling are like. In an in-demand city like this one, an open house is the realtor's last resort -- it's an indicator that a house isn't selling for a reason.

  c) Mom gave me a phone call saying "You've got to check out this open house!" You sometimes have to humour the parental units; it keeps the family functional.

• I'm working on getting you a particular (agent) name for a referral.. I'll get back to you as soon as I have it... Do you have my email? I'll email you the details when I have them, but I don't think that I have a good addy for you... maybe Karl has one

• accordionguy@gmail.com is a good email address at which to reach me.

• Glad you're lining up an agent. For me, the worst experiences while hunting for a house all happened before I got an agent on my side. From then on, things went pretty smoothly, in spite of my limited budget and desire to live in one of the higher-priced parts of Minneapolis.

• I find that open houses in Toronto are not only a last resort, often they are a way to drum up a bidding war. Agent lists the house on Thursday or Friday, does not accept offers for a week, and holds an all-out open house on the weekend. House is priced well to draw people in, then the madness of the bidding war drives the price up 100K.