Things you wish you knew before buying house?

[FairestOfThemAll37]

I mentioned on another thread, I’ve recently started looking at homes. I’ve found one that I quite love but am absolutely terrified!!! I’ve rented all my life and buying seems like such a big nebulous process. I’m very close to putting in an offer but it sets off such anxiety!

What do you wish you’d known before you bought your first house or your current house? Any regrets? Any words of wisdom for a prettified potential first time home buyer?

 

[Klayfish]

We've purchased 6 houses over the years, though 5 of them were new construction. To me, the biggest thing is making sure the "bones" of the house are solid and also functionally right for your needs. Cosmetics are easy...flooring, paint, non-structural walls, etc...and typically aren't expensive (relatively speaking) to update/upgrade/change. So if this is an existing home, make sure the layout will actually serve your needs and have it inspected to make sure the bones are good. Obviously the age of the house is important too. Is it old enough to have asbestos, lead paint, out of code wiring, how old is the roof, the HVAC system, etc...?

Yes, house buying can be overwhelming. Take a deep breath, look at things logically, make checklists.

Good luck!!!

 

[ronandannette]

I wish I’d known the market had peaked and was almost immediately going to enter a steep and steady 5-year decline leaving property values 20% lower than what I paid.

 

[Floridaman999]

Don't buy something that will max out what you're comfortable paying each month as a payment for your mortgage. Remember that you now have to worry about upkeep and repairs, so you should make sure to consider a portion of what you're used to paying in rent something that you'd put in savings for unexpected repairs and upkeep. Just because the mortgage company says "this is how much you can buy" doesn't mean that is how much you should buy.

 

[piccolopat]

Make sure you have enough in savings after you close for any unexpected repairs. A good home inspection is a must and as PP noted should check for things that are expensive to fix after the house is yours - lead and asbestos abatement, bad plumbing, wiring and HVAC, roof and drainage, etc. Make sure you like the neighborhood and check on the zoning to make sure that lovely empty lot isn't destined to become something undesirable. If you have kids, make sure your house is actually in the school district that you want because sometimes the street address can be deceiving. If the house will be in an HOA make sure you understand all of the restrictions and the process they have for making changes later on.

 

[MamaBelle4]

We lucked out when we bought our home. We bought it at the absolute lowest the housing bubble burst and it is currently worth nearly double the sale price. That wasn't a plan we had, it just worked out right for us timing wise.

Get a real estate agent you trust. Ours was amazing. We've lived here for 10 years now. And boy do things have a tendency of piling up. Our air conditioner needs repaired (I hope!) and we just had to replace the well pump last year. It's always something but I love our home. Every one of my children took their first steps here.

 

[LovesTimone]

Make sure you have a home inspection, choose and pay for someone that works for you.... not for the agent or the homeowner... you will get a more honest inspections as they work for you... if there is a roof problem, make sure that they replace the whole roof before you buy it, ask when its going to be replaced and go by to verify... our friends were told they replaced the whole roof, then a year later they had multiple leaks, and the were getting estimates and found out that they only patched the roof in one spot... it was a mess, they then found out the there were rotted board and mold, and alot damage that you could see from termites all that could be seem from the attic of the house, that the inspector did not note on the inspection report... It was a nightmare... the had to fight with the home-owner insurance which they finally paid some what and they ended up hiring a attorney to sue the home inspector, real estate company, real estate agent, roofing company and seller to court... it was a 2 year battle, in the end they did win...

Look at how the house will function for your daily life... really spend sometime, thinking about getting ready in the morning for work does the bathroom meet your needs, cooking in the kitchen, open the frig or oven do can you still open other cabinets, enough counter space for your daily lifestyle, and then what about if you are entertaining, if you have kids were will the play at, do you need a fenced in yard, and there is not a fence whats the cost...how close the bedroom is to the road, road noise at night, or near a kids bedroom...

Parking, guest parking

HOA, fees are keeping within your budget, and rules will they fit your lifestyle...

Did you drive through the neighborhood at night... things look alot different at night... we skipped on a house once due to driving in the neighborhood in the evening and at night.. it made us realize how much traffic would be next to the house, and the noise level..parking on the street and how the lights from the cars would hit the house and some sketchy folks wandering around in the neighborhood at midnight...

As well drive through the neighborhood on the weekend...

Drive from what could possibly be your new home to your place of employment and back again after work to get a real feel of what the drive would be like.... how close are the highway to you if this is important..

More than likely you will want new blinds, drapes, and such make sure your have enough in budget to go for some basic new thing to go into the new house....

If you are buying a home does the seller offer a home warranty for the first year.. this might be something that you can request with the offer...and stick to it....

 

[kdonnel]

I wish I’d known the market had peaked and was almost immediately going to enter a steep and steady 5-year decline leaving property values 20% lower than what I paid.

I bought in 2005, at least a tiny bit before the peak. 14 years later I still would not be able to list my house for more then I paid based on recent home sales in the neighborhood. At best I could list it for what I paid and expect to sell it for $10,000 or so less.

Yet I would not trade the 14 years in this house for another home. It turned out to be an amazing choice for my kids, my wife, and myself.

 

[lovin'fl]

We have bought 5 houses, 1 condo and current townhome in 21 years. A few things we learned were to know what big ticket items need fixing. Our last house was a money pit...1973 complete fixer. We spent a good $85,000 in renovating and didn't get any of that back when we resold (bought it in 2007 and sold in 2017 for same price). Now we ask...how old is the roof? HVAC age? Windows? Plumbing? Etc... Actually, we likely won't ever buy another house that is older than maybe 10 years. DH says new builds only but that's not always possible. We are looking at houses now too and we will go with a new/almost new home. Our current place is only 9 years old (was 7 when we bought it).

Another thing we learned to avoid is any signs of water issues. Like water in the basement or leaky windows or doors or roof. And yards that slope toward the house instead of away. Water issues can be difficult to fix and lead to mold issues. That being said, always get an inspection and maybe use your own inspector (not one realtor recommends as they may recommend a 'friend' who will sugar coat things). But also, inspector will list everything in written report and some things aren't a big deal but it may look daunting as it's all listed in the report. It's a good idea to be AT the inspection and have the inspector walk you through everything (our last one we drove in for but our realtor didn't show up and the inspector said we couldn't come in without realtor....sigh...so when we got report we freaked until we had him walk us through what it all meant).

Know the things you want, like walk in pantry...top floor laundry...first floor master...things like that that can't be easily added later on. MAybe even little things too like how many outlets and where they are. Things like paint, flooring, cabinets, light fixtures can be changed. The one biggest flaw of our current place is it's a 1 car garage (some other townhomes in here have 2 with 2 lane driveway) and we are only allowed to park in garage and our driveway...no street parking at all. So we have to park our 2 cars in tandem, 1 lane driveway, and it's a pain as we have to shuffle cars often (and when our college kids are here we really have to finagle).

 

[foodiddiedoo]

No one has mentioned property taxes. Make sure you know what they will be (I moved houses within my neighborhood and because it was a new build vs an older home my property taxes more than doubled for a similar sized lot). Ensure that you can afford that payment monthly (in some states, like mine they can be over 1000 dollars a month) before selecting a town to live as well.

 

[mnrose]

Make sure you budget for "unexpected" expenses you never worried about when a renter. Dryer stops working. Ooops, I need to fix or replace that. Leak develops under the sink (just happened at one of our rentals yesterday....we had to buy and replace the garbage disposal...about $110, and DH did the work himself in about an hour). Another expense. These are small(ish), and I won't even bother scaring you with the BIG (and expensive) problems that can crop up (much less frequent, thank goodness). I would say we have some unanticipated expense with our house every 3-4 months. You'll experience fewer if the house is "brand new", but eventually every house has these issues. So, put aside $100 a month or so into your home repair fund, unless you have enough cash flow/savings to cover those expenses as they come up.

Second the idea of getting a GOOD inspection. Ask your friends who they used. For all that's holy, do not use the one recommended or used by the seller's agent and do not believe THEIR inspection if they had one done in advance to "prove" that it is a sound house (I've seen that, and it makes me shake my head). You are investing in a very expensive asset. Spend a few hundred bucks on your OWN inspection. And, get one done, even of a NEW house. We were in escrow once on a gorgeous new home (worth huge money), and you would not believe the problems in construction found by our inspector. It all looked "pretty" and "shiny" but corners had been cut. We cut and ran. No way was I buying that headache.

 

[Lilacs4Me]

That you will soon hate everything about water! Almost every nasty *surprise!* repair or fix in your house will be from water damage. Whether it's the roof, the basement, water heater or washer leaking/breaking, sump pump going out, plumbing, window leaks, mold, standing water in the yard....ugh. Water is NOT my friend. And then add insult to injury every 2 months when we get our $300 water bill from the village, and I hate it even more!

And everything else everyone already said!

 

[mnrose]

And another thing. Find out if there are any special assessments being planned for the area of the home. Cities don't just "come up with those" at the last minute. You can go down to City Hall, and ask....any big projects coming in that area? Road being rebuilt? Sewer being upgraded? Etc. I am on the City Council in my little town, and road work is assessed 60% to the homeowner, with the rest of the City through taxes assuming the remaining 40% of the cost. And, we plan 4-6 years in advance (e.g., there's a preliminary plan to redo MY street in 2024 that is already known). This can add anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand per year to your property taxes. Now, the seller is obliged to disclose things they've been formally noticed about, but I would not rely on this. Check yourself, and check for plans. Again, if your budget can absorb this sort of thing, no worries.

 

[tvguy]

We were lucky when we bought out then 4 year old house 36 years ago. No issues.

DD is going through the house search now. HOA fees.......and the ability of HOAs to levy special assessments are something to look for if there is an HOA. She fell in love with one place with an HOA, and if the $300 a month HOA fee wasn't excessive enough, the board had just approved a $10,000 assessment on every unit for new roofs. A portion of that $300 was SUPPOSED to have been set aside over the previous 30 years to pay for the new roofs, but that didn't happen.

I'd also make having the seller provide a home warranty a condition of any offer.

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

Talk to the neighbors if possible. Bad neighbors can make even the perfect house miserable.

 

[marthachick]

Don't buy something that will max out what you're comfortable paying each month as a payment for your mortgage. Remember that you now have to worry about upkeep and repairs, so you should make sure to consider a portion of what you're used to paying in rent something that you'd put in savings for unexpected repairs and upkeep. Just because the mortgage company says "this is how much you can buy" doesn't mean that is how much you should buy.

Absolutely this!

Also, when quoted a payment, ask if the quote includes any escrow. That can jack up what you are really paying quite a bit

 

[Breezy_Carol]

I wish I had looked into the feeder patterns for the schools. The schools that my kids attended were all good but between middle school and high school, they moved to a school different than their friends of the previous 8 years. (We were in the same house.)

 

[barkley]

No one has mentioned property taxes. Make sure you know what they will be (I moved houses within my neighborhood and because it was a new build vs an older home my property taxes more than doubled for a similar sized lot). Ensure that you can afford that payment monthly (in some states, like mine they can be over 1000 dollars a month) before selecting a town to live as well.

Find out if there are any special assessments being planned for the area of the home

these 2 things-and investigate if the school district is pursuing/has impending bond initiatives b/c they can increase your property taxes for several years.


also-

insurance-get an estimate from the company you plan to use to see how much that cost will add to your monthly payment,

utilities-you can ask a seller to provide a prior use printout from their providers to get an idea what the average monthly cost runs (and if the heating or cooling runs higher than seems the norm it can be an indicator of lacking insulation), if the house uses a propane or other tank-find out if it's owned by the homeowner or something you will be renting from a local company (kind of the norm where we live for larger tanks),

hvac-just read an article in aarp where the suggestion was made to consider arranging for a special escrow account for the hvac that remains in place AFTER closing. the idea is that an inspector can reasonably check the heating function if buying in the winter months but it's difficult at best on the cooling. same goes for checking the a/c-fairly easy to check in warmer months for effectiveness, near impossible in winter. you set up an escrow where part of your purchase price goes into it to be held for hvac repair/replacement until a pre determined inspection on whatever part of the hvac that needs to be delayed for inspection occurs,

educate yourself on the general cost of some upgrades/changes b/c what might seem minor can cost MUCH MORE than you realized (cement work gets very costly so that cracked patio that looks like an easy remove/replace job can run many thousands-driveways get VERY costly to replace),

last but not least-think about all the services your current rental provides and if it's within the norm for living in the area what it will cost you to do/hire out to be done. around here apartments provide for snow removal so at minimum you will need snow shovels-much more likely investing in a snowblower (and allocating removal into you commute to work time), landscaping so if the house has lawns, flowers...the cost of getting a lawn mower and other gardening tools or hiring someone to do it for you, and pest service (we get wicked bad issues w/wasps and other critters so it's either being very proactive and treating/eliminating on your own or like most of us do-hire a service). it all adds up over the course of a year.

 

[neverlandsky]

For me:

Rather have smaller sq ft and efficient floorplan over larger sq fr and horrible floorplan.

Home facing north or south.

Look for an energy efficient home. It will save huge.

Water is a big expense. Look for xeriscape/native landscaping.

If you can 20% down to avoid PMI and get a loan where there’s no prepayment penalities.

6 month emergency fund that way you can skirt by with a higher home insurance deductible and cheaper homeowners insurance.

Location Location Location. Bring up crime map, go back 6 months for a neighborhood.
Look at local sex offenders in the area as well.

Call the utilities companies and ask average bills. Highest in the winter amd summer.

 

[lovin'fl]

Yes...school systems. Our last town, where we moved from 2 years ago, didn't have it's own HS and half the kids went 17 mins to one and the other half went 17 mins to another. One of those 2 schools was a good one with high rating and other was not great. Homes in the not-great HS district were harder to sell. SIL lived in that district, sent her kids to private HS, and sold when we sold. We, in the good HS district, sold in a day and almost at asking. SIL listed 3 times, pulling off after long time and then kept lowering price and finally sold at same price we sold for but she had a way better house (newer, larger, upgraded more and even an addition added). That town has just built it's own HS so SIL's house would be easier to sell today. But for re-selling purposes it's better to buy in a good school district.

Home warranties are a joke in my opinion. We had one on the last house, the 1973 money pit fixer upper. And many things had big loopholes and weren't covered or you had to pay a deductible or something that made it completely not worth it. Our HVAC wasn't working and they said...sorry, it's too old so we won't cover it. There was a hot tub that also wasn't working and we were told that wasn't covered either and had to be a special added policy to the warranty. If I see a house offering one on it's listing, I cross that house off.