Houston First-time Home Buyer Step #3: Pick a Neighborhood

Now that your budget is set, working with your Realtor to determine the right neighborhoods is the next step.  Your Realtor should have an intimate knowledge of the neighborhoods that fit within your budget.  It doesn’t make sense to look at homes in West University if your budget is $300,000.  Houston offers an abundance of neighborhood and lifestyle options.  These range from urban to suburban, single-family homes to high rise living. The property type that you are interested in may also help your Realtor determine a good neighborhood fit.  For example, if you are only interested in recently constructed town homes, it doesn’t make sense to look in Oak Forest.  Rice Military may be a better fit for this search.

If you are not familiar with very many neighborhoods, you should start out with a fairly broad search which could include a half dozen neighborhoods.  As you start to view properties online and in-person as we’ll discuss in future posts, you may be able to narrow down your search a bit.

This is the third post in our ongoing series aimed to provide help and guidance to Houston’s first-time home buyers. Click here to check out the 4th Step for Houston’s First-time Homebuyers. Or if you would like to speak to a real live human about these questions and steps, fill out the form below.