This is certainly a tough time to sell a home. Most sellers are in positions where they must make this difficult decision knowing full well that it will cost them dearly due to the necessary price reductions in this turbulent market.

One way to reduce the anxiety over selling a home is to sell it as quickly as possible. To do that, it is important to understand today’s buyer, who is someone most of us have never encountered.

To help understand this person, I asked an active home buyer, Todd, exactly what it is he is looking for and what it will take to purchase a new home. Interestingly, Todd is also a recent seller, having just sold his condominium in Costa Mesa.

At this time, Todd is renting an apartment in Irvine while he looks for a home with his fiancée.

Q. Where are you looking for a home and why?

A. Our main target areas are Aliso Viejo and Mission Viejo, but we’re also looking at neighboring cities including Laguna Niguel, Laguna Hills and Rancho Santa Margarita. We want quiet, and we want a newer home (before 1990) that will require less maintenance and upkeep over time. While Mello-Roos and other things may be prevalent in those areas, we understand those taxes pay for the amenities such as parks, lakes, pools and schools, which we believe will keep property values elevated.

Q. What is your price range?

A. We are currently shopping in the $400,000 to $450,000 range.

Q. How many homes have you looked at?

A. We have viewed probably in the neighborhood of 40 to 50 homes and condos.

Q. Describe the role of the Internet in your home search.

A. We can’t imagine going through this process without it! Our realtor, Valerie Torelli in Costa Mesa, set us up with Listingbook.com, a site much like Redfin and Trulia. We use this for searching for homes meeting our criteria, also to send messages to our agent on specific properties we would like to see. E-mail alerts are very useful on those days where we’re too busy to search on the Internet — we both receive daily alerts from multiple sites which gives us the opportunity to quickly view newly listed or recently reduced homes on the market. We get a lot of use on our mobile devices as well, mostly in the car. This allows us to find open houses in the area, and also as a resource to find out where our offers are in comparison to other recently closed sales. The ability to access e-mail offers, communicate with the bank, our realtor, even the escrow company during our sale, expedites everything involved with the home buying process and keeps all parties informed.

Q. Are mortgage rates and qualifications for a mortgage an obstacle?

A. They haven’t been for us. We’ve always been very mindful of our credit, and we both have excellent credit scores. We are 20% down buyers with a conventional approval mortgage.

Q. Describe the home you are looking for.

A. Three bedroom, two bath, hopefully more than 1500 sq. ft. with a decent-sized backyard. We are finding more and more that builders of newer homes have built to maximize land. So many homes in newer areas are right on top of each other allowing for no yard and not much privacy — things on our “must-haves” list. We know older homes generally have more land, but we still want newer so we don’t have to do as much to maintain the house. Being detached is another big one for us, and a driveway, too — it’s surprising how many properties out there don’t have one. A spacious kitchen and a loft are higher on our list as well, but are not deal-breakers.

Q. Other than a good price, what will it take for you to buy your new home?

A. A “clean” home inspection. The home needs to be turn-key; no work required to move-in. Maybe some painting, but that’s it. Lastly, we just need one of our offers to get accepted and if a short sale, for that process to hurry through. These have been our biggest challenges as well as defining our wants and desires, since I don’t know that we’ve really fine tuned that until recently either.

So, there it is. Today’s buyer is much the same as yesterday’s except that he is now wired into the process.

STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and a freelance writer. Send story ideas to smi161@aol.com.