If you are thinking that you may want to buy a home, often the best first steps involve:
- online research
- talking with friends and family who’ve purchased a property recently (and nearby)
- speak with a Realtor who’s active in the areas you think may be a fit for your budget, commute, space needs, and more
Even if you think that home buying is a couple of years away, it can be helpful to do some groundwork so that you have a sense of how much of a down payment to save, what work you might want to do to improve your credit score, or to begin finding areas where you’d like to live when you are ready to purchase.
Getting Started with Buying a Home
Who we are, how we can help you to begin
We are an experienced mother daughter team and we’d be happy to chat with you by phone for a no pressure, no obligation conversation about the steps involved to buy a home as well as the process of obtaining a loan, narrowing your focus, etc.
We are not pushy and have a focus in our work on educating our clients who want to buy a home or sell one so that they can make informed decisions. (You can read our work philosophy here.)
Usually that first conversation runs about 30 minutes, more or less. You can get some questions answered and if both you and we feel like it is a good fit, we could meet in person after that.
Learn more about us here.
Buy a Silicon Valley home: start with some research
Want to research on how to buy a home your own first? Many do. On our real estate websites, especially SanJoseRealEstateLosGatosHomes.com, we have a tremendous number of articles about home buying, first time home buyer questions, multiple offer strategies, lending questions, neighborhood profiles, plus area specific real estate market reports. Our LiveInLosGatosBlog has the best info on LG neighborhoods you can find anywhere, but it also includes events, market reports, etc.
Here are a few links to get you started whether you want to buy a house, a townhouse, or a condominium:
The San Jose real estate market analysis (on SanJoseRealEstateLosGatosHomes.com, updated monthly – unique content)
Silicon Valley homebuyer tip: check the property history of the house you like (on SanJoseRealEstateLosGatosHomes.com)
5 things your Silicon Valley buyer’s agent can do to help improve the odds that your offer will be accepted (on SanJoseRealEstateLosGatosHomes.com)
What are typical buyer closing costs in Silicon Valley? (on SanJoseRealEstateLosGatosHomes.com)
Setting priorities and organizing them for home buying (on SanJoseRealEstateLosGatosHomes.com)
Silicon Valley pricing snapshot (on Move2SiliconValley.com, our relocation website)
Buying Process (on popehandy.com, Mary’s oldest site)
Beware: a word about syndicated listings
Not every available listing will show up on this site, or Realtor.com, or any of the other big real estate portals.
A percentage of all listings of real estate for sale have been designated by the listing agents and sellers as “Agent Only” listings, meaning that they will not be syndicated beyond the MLS. In our area, that’s MLS Listings.
Recently I did a check and about 15% of the homes for sale are not syndicated.
In some cases, the homes are “Agent Only, Show” and we can bring our clients to the property and get them in. If you really want to buy a home, it’s imperative that these are part of the inventory you’re considering!
In other cases, the properties are “Agent Only, Do Not Show” – which is more like “Coming Soon”.
You can see these homes online, even if not in person, if you get a search lined up in the MLS by your real estate agent (who’s a dues paying member). We have been getting our clients subscribed to these feeds and have had sales success by using them.
Search all listed properties for sale
Looking to buy a home in the Silicon Valley area? Silicon Valley is a huge region, encompassing all of Santa Clara County, most of San Mateo County, and a little each of Santa Cruz County and Alameda County. Narrowing where you want to purchase – at least to an area of a few square miles – should be an early priority.
Below, please browse actively listed and syndicated properties for sale. You can move the map around to see more houses, condos, and townhomes. The starting point is in the San Jose area since that’s primarily where we work selling real estate.
Our service area is primarily Santa Clara County (San Jose, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Campbell, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, and nearby areas), but at times we will also sell in the adjacent counties. If we are unable to assist you to buy a home in an area for any reason, we will be happy to connect you with a partner agent who is knowledgeable and experienced also, and who shares our approach to real estate and client service. That person can help you to buy a home and will be vetted by us!
Related Resources:
Please also check out our YouTube Channel, where we discuss Silicon Valley real estate FAQs and also have some neighborhood drive through videos.
We do regular market updates for many areas of Santa Clara County on our main blog, SanJoseRealEstateLosGatosHomes.com. Just visit the site and do a search for a city or area of San Jose in the search bar, OR go to Neighborhoods in the top menu and find the one you want to know more about.
