In the current seller’s market in Prince Edward County, homes are selling much more quickly than in the past.
If you’re a buyer, you need to move more quickly than in the past to avoid seeing the property you’re interested in sold before you can act.
In order to act both quickly and prudently, I recommend a two-stage approach to purchasing a house.
For the first stage, view a series of homes with the goal of developing a sense of the market, not with the goal of looking for the ideal property. I recommend looking at a few homes at your target price as well as some homes 10% below your target price and 10% above your target price.
Including homes below and above your target price is a statistically efficient way to get the best understanding of market value with a minimum of effort. (It’s analogous to a testing approach which used to be used in life sciences called “up and down method”…better not to ask about the details.)
Then, when you’ve got a good sense of value, you can shift into true house hunting mode, ready to act both quickly and prudently because you’ve got a good grasp on the market.