How to Buy Your First Home While Social Distancing

The home buying process is already complicated enough for first time home buyers, and, with the inclusion of social distancing, it may seem harder than ever to find an affordable new home. Here at Centex we are doing everything we can to ensure that the search for your new home can continue safely and efficiently using the many tools at our disposal.

Here’s how we’re doing it -

Video Tours:

Taking a tour by video is the safest and most efficient way to tour one of Centex’s affordable new homes. Once you have selected a community and home model that you are interested in, you can contact a community sales consultant to set up an appointment to virtually view the home. These days there are multiple free video calling services that you can use such as FaceTime, Zoom, Skype, and WhatsApp to tour a prospective home. These services all offer free versions that are easy to install on your smartphone, tablet, or computer.

The largest benefit of the video tour is that you will have the full attention of one of our dedicated sales consultants who will be conducting the tour from your selected community. They will be right on hand to answer any questions you may have and be able to give you personalized views of the home, unlike a fixed virtual tour. Once the tour is complete you will have the ability to ask any remaining questions you may have with the specialist who can also provide you with some insights on buying your first home.

Online Virtual Tours:

to your needs. Powered by Matterport, our 3D tours use high-definition cameras to capture vivid details of the entire space. In explore mode, you can view the home with 360-degree views placed every 4 to 5 feet of the space. Each room has several viewing spots to give you multiple angles of a room, while the measuring tool lets you take custom measurements, allowing you to measure counter heights, hallways, and floor space with the simple click of a button. These tours can be done on your own time, without worrying about community hours or sales consultant availability. After you're done, you can reach out to a community sales consultant seven days a week by phone or text to follow up with additional questions, request a video tour, or take the next step in purchasing your first new home.

*3D tours are only available in select models and communities, please see the community page for availability.

Online Home Resources:

In addition to video and online tours, we offer plenty of website resources about the many different features of our home such as smart home automation, customizable floor plans, a virtual room designer tool, and more. We also offer online resources that can help you learn more about financing your first home so when you are ready to buy you know exactly what steps you will need to take.

*Online tools such as room designer are not available for all models, please contact your sales consultant for availability.

In-Person Tours:

While we strongly recommend taking one of our video or virtual home tours, we understand that purchasing a home, particularly for the first time, is a big decision and that some people need to see the space in person. That is why we are still doing in-person tours, strictly on an appointment basis where state and city regulations still allow. We are only allowing one tour per home at a time and are taking extra precautionary cleaning measures to ensure that our offices and model homes are thoroughly sanitized to protect our staff and customers. To set up an appointment for an in-person tour, please contact the sales consultant for the community that you are interested in viewing for availability.

Digital Home Buying:

Once you have decided on your first time home purchase, we are able to digitally facilitate this process with the help of our dedicated sales consultants. We are also pleased to say that Pulte Mortgage® remains digitally operational and are able to assist with financing, mortgages, and down payments. Please contact your sales consultant for more information.

Thank you for your patience as we all navigate this difficult time. Despite the challenges, we will do our best to adjust as necessary and will continue to provide every first time homebuyer with a world-class customer experience as they search for a new home.

To learn more about COVID-19, please refer to the CDC.

Published 4.6.20