Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Realtors...

We have officially been in Santiago for 3 weeks - it sure has gone by quickly.  While so much has happened it seems in just these few weeks, we are now faced with the task of settling down.  This means we need to get ourselves to Antofagasta.  So, we have planned a trip for next week (Monday-Thursday).  The flight is short (about 2 hours) and direct, so hopefully it won't be too much of a pain to get there.  Once there, we have rented a car and will be driving around the city in search of a new home.  We have been doing our research, looking at neighborhoods and even houses/apartments online, but even with lots of pictures, it doesn't necessarily give us a good representation what we will find.  Plus, looking for a place to live in Antofagasta is quite different from looking for a place in the US. 

In the US: Find a realtor or 2 and meet with them, and eventually you will end up with just one who will show you all the properties you want in the MLS, even if the property was not listed under their name or agency. 

In Antofagasta: Find a property you think you might like, contact the realtor to show you that property (and maybe one other one they have).  Then, find another property, contact that realtor, and so on. So, you could be contacting 10 realtors to see 10 properties.  It seems completely inefficient and wrong, but I can assure you, this is how it's done.

As you can imagine, it has been a bit of a mess and is testing my organizational and language skills.  So, please wish us luck next week finding a good place for our family!

I will make sure to post lots of pics of the city and the areas we are thinking about since I'm sure you are all curious :)

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