What you wish you would have known about buying your first house?

Question

Things you wish you would have done differently;questions u wish u would have asked or hings in general you kick yourself now for not ahving known?

Answer 1

Figure out how much the upkeep would cost.

Get to know the neighbors a bit (Neighbors from hell can make your castle a prison)

Get an honest inspection and estimates of repairs

Hire agent whose only financial gain was straight from my pocket, none from the sale of the house

Get all the history on the house (those little things that neighbors might share about trouble with the house),
blueprints, location and flow of the sewer and gas lines from the house to the city lines
even pictures during construction if available (just because there are blue prints, doesn't mean they were followed)

How water flows on your property when you have a downpour.
And does your street flood or drain well?

Fire Dept service in your area. Are you on the farthest edge of the company that would serve you, even though there's a fire house closer (that doesn't serve your area).

Ratings of schools

Location of sex offenders in the neighborhood

Is that too pessimistic?

Answer 2

One is I wish I had taken the time to run the water in every faucet, and both baths. Turned out the water pressure is very low, and one bath was turned off because of a leak, instead of being repaired. I also wish I had checked every window carefully, the realtor showed me the porch with the shades down, and one window is cracked.

The realtor also had to tell me what the average heating costs was, but neglected to mention the previous owners were apparently heating only parts of the house. (Vents were shut down in five bedrooms.)

I wished I had checked to see if the garage and barn had electricity....I was so excited/nervous when I was shown the house, I saw powerlines and fuse boxes, and made the assumption that the power was there.

Depending on where you live, plan for the weather if you can. My loan took so long to actually go through...that by the time we closed it was DEC 1st. Through the entire move I had to worry about unexpected snow, and dealing with getting a moving truck into the different entrances to the house. (It's a farm house so there was plenty of snow in the yard.)

Be sure you have money saved when you buy a house, for expected expenses and more. When you're getting a house, it seems like every time you turn around you're paying another fee. I did my best, but when it came right down to the wire I was panicking because I didn't know if I could afford the moving truck rental for one more day.

The last, and final thing that really stands out in mind, which may sound stupid was that I badly underestimated how long it would take to get everything moved. I took a week off from work, figuring the five days, plus two weekends would be plenty of time...plus a day or two to relax. By the end of it, I had to continue moving right up until the day I went back to work....and in the morning I was still moving, returning the moving truck, and then making it to work in the final seconds.

Answer 3

When we were looking at houses I wish I had brought along a camera...Its nice to have pictures for reference and even nicer if you do buy the place to have all the "before" pics!
I know that seems unimportant with the enormity of "The first home" purchase but its a little thing you'll be happy about later.

Answer 4

I would have
1.) gotten the roof inspected, because we suspected damaged shingles due to some water stains but didn't follow up. We then ended up paying over $10,000 for roofing work.
2.) checked the property map to see where the leaching field for the septic system was. We thought we could build a garage on a portion of the property, but it turned out we couldn't because of the *&^$ leaching field. Be sure to do that if you're buying a property with a septic system installed.

Answer 5

A 12 month Warranty. Which the seller purchases for the buyer. It covers almost anything mechanical.

Make sure you get a GOOD inspection done BEFORE signing.

Answer 6

Not to let it be a mobile home. Dumb dumb dumb. Now, 14 yrs later we are still trapped in a piece of junk and can't get rid of it for what we owe.

Oh, did I mention, dumb dumb and dumb???