Buying a home
The Strategic Buying Method™
Five stages, starting well before you look at a single listing.
A Clear Path to Finding, Winning and Protecting the Right Home
Five stages, in order. Most buyers start with Zillow. My clients start with a strategy.
That is not a dig at anybody. It is that the search is the easy part and almost everybody starts there, which means almost everybody is making the biggest decisions of the process on the least information. This method front-loads the thinking so the searching is quick and the winning is possible.
I have been licensed since 2006 and sold over 700 homes. I am a REALTOR® and the Broker/Owner of Referred Realty Group, with REAL Broker.
Stage 1: The Vision Session
This replaces the typical buyer consultation. The goal is clarity before chaos.
- Understand your lifestyle goals
- Identify the real reason for the move
- Define the ideal location and property type
- Talk through your long-term plans, five to ten years out
- Build the buying strategy
What buyers say afterward is some version of "we finally have a plan."
The five-to-ten-year question is the one people skip and the one that saves the most money. A house that suits the next two years and fights you for the following eight is an expensive kind of right.
The Strategic Buying Method™
Stage 2: Market Intelligence
The goal here is to turn you into a smart market participant rather than a passenger. When buyers understand the market, they make better decisions, and they make them faster, which in this market matters.
- How the neighborhoods actually differ
- Pricing trends
- Inventory patterns
- Resale considerations
- Land versus subdivision
- HOA realities
This is the stage where coming from somewhere else costs people most, because the instincts you built in another market quietly stop applying. If that is you, there is a whole page on relocating here, including the two things people get most wrong before they arrive.
Stage 3: The Opportunity Search
Most agents send you MLS listings. I search strategically.
- An actual MLS search strategy rather than a saved search
- Off-market opportunities
- My agent network
- Coming-soon properties
- Builder opportunities
- Private seller connections
I want to be careful about what I am promising here. Off-market deals do come together, and I have done them, but they are not the norm and anyone implying otherwise is selling you a treasure hunt.
The realistic advantage is timing. Being early to a coming-soon listing, hearing about something through the agent network before it is broadly marketed, and having your strategy already settled so you can move the day the right house appears rather than starting to think about it then. When the right house does appear, seeing it early and being ready to move are usually the whole difference, and both are relationship and preparation problems rather than software problems.
Stage 4: Winning the Home
The goal is to win without overpaying, which are two different things and are often treated as one.
- Offer structure
- Escalation strategies
- Seller psychology
- Contingencies
- Multiple-offer scenarios
Getting the home is about strategy, not luck. I am a Certified Negotiation Expert and I negotiate collaboratively rather than as a fight to be won, because the deals that fall apart mostly fall apart over ego rather than over money.
Stage 5: Protecting the Investment
Almost no agent frames this as a stage at all, which is exactly why it matters. The goal is protecting you after the offer is accepted, when most people assume the work is finished.
- Inspection strategy
- Repair negotiations
- Appraisal navigation
- Contract milestones
- Closing coordination
Buying the home is only half the job. Protecting your investment is the other half.
Montana's disclosure law helps you here, provided somebody reads it properly. A seller has to put in writing the adverse material facts they actually know about: title, the water source and wastewater, the utility connections, and the structural and mechanical systems, which means the roof, the foundation, the plumbing, electrical and heating, the well and the septic. It also covers substantial work done without a permit. What it does not cover is anything the seller genuinely did not know, which is why the inspection still does the heavy lifting.
If you are selling as well as buying, the selling side runs on its own method, and the sequencing between the two is worth settling before you tour anything. The general buying page is here. Otherwise tell me what you are looking for, or look around the rest of the site first.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Vision Session?
It replaces the typical buyer consultation. We work out your lifestyle goals, the real reason for the move, the location and property type that actually fit, and where you expect to be in five to ten years. Then we build the strategy. The goal is clarity before chaos.
Why not just start looking at listings?
Because the search is the easy part, and starting there means making the biggest decisions on the least information. Most buyers start with Zillow. My clients start with a strategy, which is what makes the searching quick and the winning possible.
Will you find me an off-market home?
Sometimes. They do come together and I have done them, but they are not the norm and I would rather say so than have you holding out for one. The dependable advantage is timing: being early to coming-soon listings, hearing about homes through the agent network, and having your strategy settled so you can move the day the right one appears.
What happens after my offer is accepted?
That is Stage 5 and it is the stage almost nobody names. Inspection strategy, repair negotiations, appraisal navigation, contract milestones and closing coordination. Buying the home is only half the job.
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