Welcome to the future!  These aren’t the days of your parents and grandparents when all buying and purchasing had to be done in person.  This is the era of online shopping.  And today, people are not only making small purchases on the internet, they’re also making major buying decisions.  This includes buying a home and designing it – including choosing design perks, like a custom closet design.

Are you intrigued?

It may seem like real estate and interior design are profound decisions that have to be made in person.  But as technology develops and more digital tools and services are created, today it is not only possible to make these major decisions online, sometimes it’s truly the smartest way.

Let’s see how – and why – you should consider buying and designing your home all online, from your first real estate search to the finishing flourish of your interior decorating: a custom closet design: 

Purchasing Your Dream Home Online

Buying a house requires several steps, but today each and every stage of the transaction can be completed online. 

Here are the stages you can go through all from the comfort of your recliner:

• Prospecting the neighborhood
• Exploring the inside of the house
• Applying for your mortgage
• Filling out your mortgage contract
• Paying your mortgage

Let’s look at each of these in greater detail:

PROSPECTING THE NEIGHBORHOOD ONLINE

Suppose you’re in the market for a new home. 

No need for a newspaper, you can browse through real-estate websites seeking a home that meets your exact desired specifications.  In your search, you see an ad for a home under construction that’s in an up-and-coming development. The ad features a computer-simulated illustration of the house, super-imposed on an artist’s rendering of the entire development.

The bird’s-eye view portrays an area with a plethora of playgrounds, expansive lawns, and ample parking.  Based on the description of the ad, the neighborhood is exactly what you’re looking for.

However, you’re reluctant to take the ad at face-value; as a responsible home-buyer, you’re wary of real-estate ads that are vaguely misleading (at best), and outrightly deceptive (at worst).

Considering this, before you start thinking about the actual house, you want to make sure that the neighborhood is indeed, as the ad describes it.

In the pre-internet days:

You would have had to make a special trip to the development to see what’s going on.

How the internet changes that:

You can now verify all the information you need, with the click of a mouse.  All you need is internet access.

Once you’re online, just type the address of the development into Google Street View®, and you can take a virtual drive through the entire neighborhood.  Within a manner of minutes, you can confirm ─with 100% certainty ─ whether or not the ad is an accurate description of the reality on the ground.

EXPLORING THE INSIDE OF THE HOUSE ONLINE

In the pre-internet days:

If you wanted to see the inside of the house, you would have had to make a special trip to see the house for yourself. 

How the internet changes that:

Many websites, such as Realtor.com or HomeGain.com, offer 3-D virtual walking tours of homes for sale.

APPLYING FOR A MORTGAGE ONLINE

Applying for a mortgage is arguably the most tedious and time-consuming part of buying a new home.

In the pre-internet days:

Applying for a home-loan meant hours spent rummaging through over-stuffed file cabinets for out-of-date pay stubs, tax returns, or bank statements. Not to mention, the interminably long and agonizing wait for the bank to scrutinize your credit report and let you know whether or not you’d be approved for the loan. 

 How the internet changes that:

The advent of the internet has opened the door to the possibility of applying for your mortgage online.

Enter Rocket Mortgage®, an online portal for home-loan application created by Quicken Loans, the Detroit-based financial institution that’s currently the #1 mortgage-lender in the United States. 

Rocket Mortgage®’s online system allows you to apply and be (hopefully) approved for a mortgage in just a few short steps. Just provide your basic contact information and Quicken Loans can pull up your bank account, income, and credit information, do an instant credit check, and let you know right away whether you’re approved or not. 

What used to be a long application and approval process that took days (if not weeks) can now be completed in less than an hour!

FILLING OUT THE CONTRACT ONLINE

In the pre-internet days:

Filling out the mortgage contract used to mean spending countless hours meeting with a bank employee.  You needed the bank representative to give you a copy of the contract, and, most likely, you had to review the mortgage contract together. 

Depending on the complexity of the loan, and the extent of your financial know-how, it could have taken you hours to review the contract line-by-line, until you were satisfied that you could fill it out properly. Finally, you had to return the completed contract to the bank employee for processing, which could take quite some time.

How the internet changes that:

Recently, Bank of America has launched an online portal called “Home -Loan Navigator® " that allows you, fill out, sign, and file your mortgage contract all online.

In addition, if you have any questions about the terms and conditions of the loan, you can have an online-chat with a bank representative, who can guide you through the entire process of filling out, e-signing, and e-filing your mortgage papers.

PAYING YOUR MORTGAGE ONLINE

In the pre-internet days:    

Before you made your first monthly payment, you had to open an account with the bank that was underwriting your mortgage, and before the due date of your monthly payment, you had to make sure that there was enough money to pay your bill.

That meant that once a month you had to make a special trip to the bank to deposit the money, mail the bank a check, or wire the money from a different bank. If the due-date arrived and your account didn’t have sufficient funds to make your payment, you would be held in default of your mortgage (regardless of how much money you had in accounts with other banks).

How the internet changes that:

Today, you don’t need to have an account with the bank that’s providing your mortgage.

Many large banks (including Wells Fargo, P.N.C. Bank, and Chase) have set up a system that allows you pay your mortgage online− whether or not you have a checking or savings account with them. All you have to do is open a special online account with the bank that’s underwriting your mortgage and link it with your current checking or savings account. Once linked, you can set up recurring payments for the date and time of your choice.

Designing Your Dream Home Online – Including the Closet Design

By now you've exercised your due diligence in surveying the overall surroundings of your house; you’ve taken the time to conduct a thorough tour of the inside of the house; you’ve successfully navigated the no-longer-so-painstaking process of getting a mortgage.   

In addition, you’ve moved all your home furniture from your old place to your new place.

However, there’s still one thing that you want to take care of, before settling down into your home:

You’ve always needed another closet to properly store and display your wardrobe. Unfortunately, your old house was too small to fit another closet, but your new home has more than enough space for as many closets as you need!

In the pre-internet days:

You would have still had a way to go before you could finally sit back and enjoy all the benefits and amenities of your new home. 

You would have had to make a special trip to a closet retailer, which, though it was definitely a nuisance, was still by far the simplest part of the buying process.  

The real confusion would have begun when you walked into the showroom. Unless you were an expert in closet design and construction, figuring out which closet would have best fit your needs, would have been quite a daunting task. 

There would have seemed to be a limitless array of possible configurations, dimensions, and styles to choose from ─ and all of that before you could have begun to consider the affordability of the closet design in question.

That meant that you probably would have had to spend many hours conversing with a sales representative before choosing which closet design to go with.

How the internet changes that:

The internet now makes possible the Modular Closets online portal.

Modular Closets’ website features an interactive system of closet design that offers you the opportunity to work one-on-one with the company’s design experts; together you can configure a closet that’s customized to meet your dimensions and personal needs at an affordable price.

Here’s how it works:

1. You log onto ModularClosets.com and click on the tab that says “Free Closet Design.”

            https://design.modularclosets.com/free-design/

2. You fill out your basic contact information.

3. You write out the exact dimensions of your closet.

4. You get presented with a list of all the standard requirements for a closet system. This includes:

• The kind of closet you need (walk-in or reach-in).
• The kind of closet door you need (e.g. single door, double doors, etc.)
• Which direction your closet door has to swing!
• The section types you’ll want in your closet (e.g. drawers, shelves, hanging rods etc.).
• The closet accessories you’ll want (e.g. belt rack, tie rack, etc.). 

5. Once you’ve finished selecting your personal needs, you just click on the button to submit your request.

6. Shortly thereafter, one of Modular Closets design specialists will reach out to you; your personal design specialist will work with you in creating the most suitable design for your particular needs. 

7. Once the design is completed, you will get a no-obligation quote.

8. Just to make sure that you’re 100 % satisfied with the design, you will get a free 3D- rendering of your customized closet.

Today it’s so easy to buy and design your dream home online, it’s the smart choice for 2018.