If you’re a typical real estate buyer, you are sometimes your own worst enemy.

While the goal should be to buy your dream home for the lowest possible price, it’s easy to get sidetracked.

In order to buy San Clemente real estate for the lowest possible price with the least hassle, I advise buyers to: 

Familiarize yourself with the marketplace.  While there is lots of information published from time to time about local housing prices, you might want to check out San Clemente market trends at mcotter.com, especially neighborhood statistics.

Check out the most popular web sites that show real estate listings.  Leading sites include:

Realtor.com
HomeGain.com
Zillow.com
Trulia.com
Homeseekers.com
Century21.com

Be ready to buy when you start looking.  It’s amazing how often that dream home presents itself right away, and you’ve got to be ready to pounce before someone else grabs it as their dream home.

Develop an idea of what you're looking for in a home, especially price range, location, type of home, interior square footage, number of bedrooms and baths, view preferences, etc.

Choose a lender or two and arrange in advance to get a solid loan approval letter to include with your offer.  Additionally, get your financial papers in order and be prepared to document your sources of funds for the purchase.

Carefully choose a real estate agent who specializes in San Clemente, and have him or her direct the MLS to send you automatic email alerts when property matching your criteria comes onto the market. These emails will come to you directly from the MLS--not the agent. These automatic emails will alert you within minutes of a property being listed and before 90 percent of the local real estate brokers even know the property's on the market.

Visit properties that appeal to you, and ask your agent to show you inside the best of them.

After just a few days of this valuable experience, you will be able to quickly recognize a bargain when you see it.

Pounce quickly when your dream home shows up.  Ideally, this will be before most of the marketplace even sees that the property is for sale.

Negotiate intelligently. Aggressively negotiate by making an offer that's easy to say "yes" to–an offer they can’t refuse. This is done by including your source of funds and loan approval documentation along with your offer. You want to create a sense of urgency by setting a deadline for the offer, and giving a reason for it.

Justify your offer price. Believe it or not, many sellers want their precious home to go to people they like. Help them like you by explaining why your offer price makes sense in the current environment. In some cases, your agent can help draft a friendly letter.

Finally, don’t get too picky near the close of escrow. Many buyers miss out on their dream home because they get hung up on small issues during escrow that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

For more of the latest market news and statistics on San Clemente real estate, visit my blog at MCotter.com.