For 16-25 miles range, some realtors might not want to go that far. When we were looking for a country property my local realtor won’t go to a horse farm 30 mins away from our suburb, he just won’t return our calls, at that time he only showed us a homemade castle nearby. So after that we have been hunting country properties on our own on the weekends, we found the ones we liked on Zillow, drove around to check on the houses and neighborhood, if we really liked it from the outside then we’d call a local realtor to show us inside. We found our country property this way by ourselves. We have never met a realtor like the ones on “What’s for sale with a view” or “ Escape to the country”. :-) From my house hunting experience, realtors don’t want to travel far. You might need a few of them to help you ( question 2).

ncrealestateguy is right. Many of us have large territories. Other agents specialize in just a few neighborhoods. If you ask the agent you are considering using as your buyers' agent, s/he will tell you their geographic area.

If you find you need a second agent for the west and south areas, do get one rather than calling the listing agent. You want an agent that represents you in your purchase and not one that represents the seller IMO.

When we moved to Connecticut we found that agents were only allowed to practice in a single area, if you went out of that area you needed a different agent. The idea being that an agent will know a single area best and so can serve the buyer best for that area alone. We have lived many places and this is the only time we found this to be the law; however, we, personally, found this to be quite true in practicality.

Thanks CA Kate. I didn't know that. It would be nice for that local realtor to tell us the reason why he couldn't show us the horse farm......

Not really on topic but if you wait until your house is under contract and can not find a new property that meets your requirements what are you planning on doing? Most residential hotels have a limit on number or size of animals allowed. It might be to your advantage to take some time before putting house on market to tour the new area to see what various neighborhoods look like.

Yes, that is an issue which we have thought about. First, we are going to drive around the various neighborhoods beforehand. We are making a trip there next week and are going to spend 2 or 3 days just driving around to the contenders and checking out the areas and the amenities. I am also going to be visiting a couple of friends who live in/near the areas we are considering and will get their take on it. We hope to narrow down location some doing this.

Ideally we would close on the sale of this house and would already be under contract on the new house and would close on the new house within days of the sale. Possibility does exist that we haven't found a new house though by that time.

If not, then we would do one of two options.

If we think we are going to find a place and close within a month or two we could stay with my mother who lives in the area. This is not ideal as she has a tiny 2 bedroom house without internet. DH and I staying in my childhood bedroom with a full size bed is not ideal. But, she has a large yard that would be fine for our 2 dogs and the cats would stay indoors. It would be cramped quarters but bearable for the short term.

If we thought it would be a long enough delay that that would not be tolerable we would board the dogs and the cats if necessary while we either stayed at a long term stay hotel or did a short term rental.

Some years ago when we had a 5 month delay between selling one house and buying another we rented a house for 6 months and boarded the excess dogs with a local breeder we knew which was cheaper than using a commercial kennel. Even so, it was expensive but it was better to do that than to buy a house too quickly that wasn't right for us. So I'm sure we could do that again if we had to.

When you are visiting the new area I would go to several open houses that weekend. Choose houses below, above and at your budget. It will give you a feel for the size/quality that you will be getting. Some of those houses will close before you are ready to buy and that will also give you an idea of which types of houses sell quickly and if houses are selling at list price, below list or above list.

Also don't be shy about driving through potential neighborhoods and stopping to talk to people out in their yards or out for a walk. People are usually happy to share their opinions and you might learn something important ... like new sewers (higher assessments) or a highway expansion (more noise, traffic, etc).

Chispa - we did some of this. The past few days we visited some family in the area where we hoped to buy. We spent a few days just going around the area and familiarizing ourselves with the market and with the areas we had identified as possible. We were able to rule out a couple of potential areas. We visited some open houses which was helpful in getting information about each potential area.

I have a good friend in lives in one of the potential areas and I went to see her and talked about the area and she drove me around to see some things. I also have the advantage that I have family in the general area (some living in or near the areas we are considering) so I talked to some of them and got feedback.

It is clear that this process is going to be challenging. This is a hot market and houses often go under contract very quickly. In the last few years prices have risen considerably. It may be difficult to get a contract on a house even after we have a contract to sell our house. Given that it will be difficult for us to go long without a house once we sell our house this will be challenging.

Another challenge will be narrowing down the area we want to buy in. The area we like the most has little inventory that meets our criteria. Many of the houses are older than I want (I want something no older than 1990) and prices are rising quickly in these areas. Even houses that need renovations can go under contract very quickly.

We did look at some new construction while we were there at it seems to be a bit more consistent in terms of availability and pricing (but most of it is not in our preferred area).

It is fairly clear at this point that most of our looking has clustered in two areas so we will probably need to have 2 buyer's agents. For one of them, I know some people who live in the area so will ask for feedback (one bought only a couple of years ago) on buyer's agents. For the other area, not really sure how I will find a buyer's agent. I have ideas on how to find seller's agents by looking at listings on closed properties, but finding a buyer's agent seems a little more difficult.

Given the difficulty of the market and the need for us to move quickly once we at least have our house under contract (best case scenario), I want to get buyer's agents quickly so I can start monitoring the listings.

As a retired military member, we frequently moved to areas that were previously unknown to us... different states, different coasts, etc.

Have you given any consideration to schools?

Even if you have no kids or none remaining at home, I would suggest that schools remain a player as they can affect future and current value and appreciation.

If you don't plan to sell your forever home, someone will eventually sell it no matter what your wishes. I assume the value at that unknown future time would be of at least some import to you even if you have passed and the sale was part of settling your estate.

Yes, I do pay attention to schools. While not as critical as it would be if we still had kids of school age, I wouldn't buy a house in an outright bad school area. I would want something at least in the good category. But, wouldn't feel I had to buy in the absolute tippy top district. All of the places we are considering are at least in the good category.

Seems a good approach. Likely attaching some value to schools will help to narrow down the candidate locales and thus make it somewhat easier to connect with a realtor that is invested in those locales.

Best of luck. You'll do fine!