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5 Things to Check Before Buying a Home



Checklist Before Buying a Home


Buying a Home Whether it’s primary or rental comes with lots of dedication and require immense time and patience. Shopping around for a house could be a tiring task. But when you have a clear mind and intentions, it could be less of a hassle. Let’s discuss five things to check before buying a home.


1: Property Dynamics


A) Property Location: The first and the most essential thing to consider is the location. This is something which is not under your control. There are things that you might want to consider like – is the property near any free-ways? or on a busy street? how friendly is the neighbourhood? How close are the schools? Etc…

B) Property FloorplanThis is something you can change depending on how much money you have and how ideal is the location of the property for you. Let’s say you like this property; however, you want a kitchen in place of the existing bedroom. Before you decide to do it, check if it is even worth the change. If not, then the best thing to do would be to move on.

C) Physical Appearance: The next thing to consider would be cosmetics of the property. These are things that you can do easily with minimum efforts. Never let go of the right property just because you don’t like the paint, floor or any small cosmetics because this is something that you can do over a weekend.

The more important things to look for, which could be deal-breaker are the condition of the roof and how old is it, water supply, electricity setups, water leakage in corners, etc.

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2: Street Traffic


Usually, when you are buying a home, you are looking at them during a specific time of the day. Maybe it’s after work, or perhaps it’s during the weekend or your day off. It means you have only seen it at a specific time of the day. But it is imperative to visit the house at different times during the day and night.

What could otherwise be a pretty quiet area could be an alternate roadway to divert traffic in peak hours. The street could also be a valet parking area for the club at the end of the street during weekends. So you must see if this is the case and finalize your home accordingly.

3: Neighbor Noise


It is essential to know the living lifestyles of the neighbours for the property you are planning to buy. It could be possible there might be someone in the neighbourhood who likes to play loud music or party for long hours. Try to visit the area at different times, especially night and weekends, to understand what exactly you are up against.

4: Commute Times


If you are buying a home for yourself, it is really important to understand the flow of traffic and how much time does it take to reach your workplace and be back. A place which says it would take 15 minutes to work on a specific day on your GPS could easily take about an hour on an otherwise busy day.

It is pretty easy to know that usually by checking it on your maps and see the estimated driving time, but it could be even better if you can drive it your self and test it first hand.


5: Property Inspections


This is very important, and we would suggest you do it every time you plan to buy a home, whether it is an investment property or a primary home. Always get the home inspected and do as many inspections as you think you might need.

Doing an inspection give you an idea of the amount of work the property needs and if you can get it on to contingencies in the sales contract. Inspections would help you to gauge the conditions of many things like roofs, heater, Air-conditioner, water pipes, etc. which would help you in deciding on your property purchase.

Conclusion


Once you have all of the above covered, it would really help you to drill down on the property that you are planning to buy.

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