I'm willing to bet we aren't the only people in this predicament right now, so I thought I'd lay out our "process" in case it was helpful for someone else. I will say that most of my method would apply to house shopping in person as well, but it came in particularly handy for our two blind-buys. So here we go.
1) Prioritize. Know what you are looking for. Style of the house? Neighborhood? Commute? Price? Kitchen layout? Everyone has an idea of what they would like in a dream home, but it's important to get those ideas laid out and then RANK them so that you have an idea of what to prioritize when you're shopping. This ranking system will also come in handy later. In Topeka it was really important that we liked the house aesthetically. We weren't exactly stoked about moving to the Midwest and we were a little concerned about my SADS. We figured that even though we hated Topeka, as long as we liked the actual house we lived in it would be manageable. So finding a house in a style we loved and which had a lot of natural light topped our list. Neighborhood was also important. Perrin was only five so we wanted a neighborhood with side walks for when he rode his bike. We originally also wanted to be close to Gage Park (the main green space in Topeka that has a zoo and playground), but ended up compromising on that because we found a picture-perfect 1920s bungalow with windows galore. For Atlanta, commute was most important. After two years of an hour each way drive, Joey wanted to be close enough to walk to the MARTA rail line so that he could commute to work by train. We also wanted to be close enough to Perrin's school to bike there when we felt up to it. Going from Tucson to Kansas, we realized how much we missed being able to bike and walk most places in lieu of driving everywhere. We also wanted a decent yard so I could set up a chicken coop and garden, two other things we gave up when we moved to Kansas. The style of the house itself ended up fairly low on our priority list, although it worked out in the end when we found an adorable 50s cottage.
2) Map it. Download Google Earth, and get the Pro edition if you can- they usually offer it for free periodically. You can create pin points of specific places and you can then add in circles of varying radii around those points. For example, I pin pointed Perrin's school, the MARTA station, downtown, and the grocery and created 1 and 3 mile radii. The area where those circles overlapped helped us narrow down what neighborhoods to look at and rate them by ideal (everything within one mile) and doable (everything within 3 miles) location. You can then use those areas to draw in your search area on Zillow or your agent's MLS site. If location is anywhere on your priority list, this is a great way to systematically incorporate it into your search. If you don't want to get that technical with it, at least throw the address into Google maps and get an idea for whats around you. Is it a busy area with tons of retail? Are you really close to a nice green space?
3) Quantify. If you really want to get nitty-gritty, Excel can be your new best friend. We like to make a spreadsheet of all the properties we're considering and use our list of priorities to assign each property a score and create a ranking system. We've done this two ways- a weighted score and ranking score. To create a weighted score, you'll need to decide what factors are most important (which is why prioritizing your wants and needs first is important) and assign more possible points for that value. For example, if price is the most important thing, you may want the cheapest houses to be worth five points, and the most expensive worth zero. In turn if parking isn't as important, you would maybe use a 0-3 scale from street parking to two-car garage. That way when you tally up all the points in the end, price is influencing the overall score more than parking. Or you can create a ranking system for each factor. Rank each property (1st, 2nd, 3rd, so on...) on how well that meet your criteria for each priority, then add up or average out the overall score. In this case the lowest score would be the ideal home. These systems can help you be more objective, which can help if you're prone to knee-jerk decisions or have a hard time looking at the bigger picture (i.e., one house has really nice appliances but you can buy appliances for any home so don't let yourself get distracted by that fancy gas range!).
4) Reconnaissance. This is the part that is especially important if you can't view a property in person before buying. You need to do a lot of digging. A simple Google search of "best neighborhoods for families in ____ area" will probably turn out a few good reads from cites like Niche, but also local publications with good insider information. You can pull up crime maps, if that's something that might be a concern. And another go-to that I love is Facebook groups. Most neighborhoods have Facebook groups. Some only allow people who currently own a home there to join, but if this is the case I've had good luck with admins answering my questions. If there isn't a neighborhood group, search for other local groups, especially parenting groups if you have children. These are great places to field general questions. For example, are there kids in the neighborhood? Is the community very close? How does traffic flow in the area? Are there any weird quirks or restrictions you should know about? Lots of barking dogs? One group I was inquiring in let me know that they have a standing casual block party every Friday at a different home each week. Another group filled me in on their don't ask/ don't tell chicken policy. These groups are great because you get to interact with people actually living in the area you are considering and they are going to have all the insider dirt.
5) Delegation. You're going to have to have someone on the ground. Generally this is going to be your real estate agent. Virtual home tours put online by the seller are nice, but you're probably going to get a better feel for the place if you are live with someone who is actually there. They can also give you a good feel for the place- if it seems light and airy, or dark and cramped, if there are lots of minor aesthetic flaws that didn't show up in pictures, and if there are any obvious structural issues (you're still going to need that thorough inspection once you have a contract, so it doesn't have to be comprehensive).
The other thing to remember is that I do all of this very early on in the process. I continually update it as properties come and go, but a lot of the heavy lifting is done before we are even ready to buy. The key is to be prepared on the front end in case you do have to make a quick decision. We saw the listing for the home we currently have a contract on the night it was listed. The next morning, I had it entered into our spreadsheet and was in conversation with several neighbors. Generally, distance home buying occurs because you don't have time to arrange a trip out to the location, so you need to be ahead of the game.
After I've done all this, I usually have an extremely good grasp of each property. I can tell you listing details but I can also navigate from that address to any other important location. I know a few neighbors by name. I can tell you where the nearest park is and how long it takes to get to the local sports venue. I put hours and hours over the course of weeks into this process, which is why Joey and I are comfortable with home buying from a distance. That's not saying that the above steps are a guarantee to being comfortable with the situation. In the end, you have to know yourself well enough to know if you can make the decision from a far or if you need to change up your strategy to accommodate an in-person showing.
