House buying can be a scary thing for any buyer, yet alone a couple of first time buyers out of their depth and pretty much on their own both financially and with regards to knowing what the hell goes on with trying to buy a house. Granted out first attempt was a bit of a fail we kind of learnt things the hard way, but we learnt a lot of things to take forward.
1 // Relationships
Whether it's your mortgage adviser or your relator/estate agent work with people you can get on with, that you can bounce ideas off, who are willing to give you their full attention and won't mind you ringing them with a random question at 9.30PM. It's their job to work for you. You don't need to be best friends but it certainly pays off to have people that you get on with that's for sure.
2// Home Inspections
You might remember my post about our home inspection - but they are key in giving that extra insight into a home you've stuck your bid on. Skipping a house inspection may risk you buying a money pit that leaks money rather than enjoyment and can get you in a better position for adjusting the buying price.
3 // Conditional offers
Make sure all your offers are condition - conditional upon the mortgage being approved, conditional on the home inspection and upon the appraisal. Unconditional offers can put you in a tricky corner if things don't work out and luckily helped us get out of our contract.
4 // Buy an electrical ground tester
If you're planning at looking and buying an older home, often electric switches aren't grounded which for some can be a deal breaker (it won't fail a house/FHA inspection it's more down to preferences especially if you have a lot of high end appliances). Joe spotted our home inspector using one and for our second and third round of looking for a house we decided to purchase one - they cost like $11 from Home Depot. While it's not a deal breaker for us, it's nice knowing which rooms are/aren't grounded.
5 // Pay attention
It's a bit of a novel feeling looking around houses but I admit to not paying enough attention on the houses we were looking at, like not noticing the lack of gutters, or there being a hole in the ceiling of the garage to how messy the hardwood flooring was on the first floor. Print off your house viewing scheduling, take notes, take photographs to write your first impressions, the pros and cons.
What would be your house buying tips?
