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I responded to this post in a different thread, but thought it might be an interesting discussion on it's own.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke
Some things I do when I am looking and I think you can expect them from many of the people looking at your house, if they are serious about buying it.
I test the water pressure by turning the kitchen faucet on (then off again). I look underneath all sinks to make sure they are not wet or moldy.
I open one cabinet to see what the construction looks like from the inside. I open and close one kitchen drawer to see if they are soft close. I will open any cabinet or drawer that looks odd, in order to see what the use is for it.
If the refrigerator is included in the sale, I will open the door and look inside. Much to my surprise, the Sub Zero refrigerator I was so happy to see has very little room inside of it. That's what started me to looking inside the fridge to see how big it is on the inside. If I am buying it, I want to see if the shelves are broken. (because if it is broken and nasty, my offer will say that you must take it with you).
I look behind your dryer to see whether or not their is a gas hook-up and how hard it is to attach the vent. (not moving the dryer, using a flashlight). If the washer/dryer are inside a closet, I will open that closet.
I will open your closets in the bedrooms to see how big they are. I will open the hall coat closet to see how big that is. I will look at your water heater and at your furnace.
I will walk into your garage to see if it looks like my pickup will fit and if there is a place to put a freezer.
I will walk the property line and shake a couple of the fence posts to make sure they aren't rotted off below ground.
If there is a shop, I want to see what the inside looks like. A surprisingly large number of shops we just looked at had some sort of weird structure added to the inside that would have to be removed, including illegal apartments and a basketball court. That affects how much I offer because it is going to cost me money to remove that stuff.
I have no interest in your personal stuff because I am not buying that. Furniture, clothing, bed, none of that gets looked at. I don't normally turn lights on and off or test your AC becasue my home inspector is going to do that if I make an offer on your house.
If someone is thinking about buying your house, they want to see what they are buying. If you place your house up for sale, you must expect people to really look at it. If people walk in and only spend 3 minutes, they don't like the house and they aren't going to buy it. It doesn't take long to see that there is something that simply can not be worked with about a house and at that point it is time to leave.
All of that sounds very reasonable to me, I do even a little more. I open every closet to see how big they are - the sizes can sometimes be very deceptive, in ways both good and bad! I open all the cabinets to see if there are features like pull out shelves. Open any appliances that convey to see what they look like inside (although I would wait for the inspection to run them to make sure they are working). I wouldn't open every window, but I would test a couple to see how easily they open and close. A few times, I've measured a piece of furniture - I know I'm not buying that piece but seeing how it fits in the space and knowing the actual size is a good benchmark to be able to tell how my own stuff will fit.
There's all sorts of stuff I'd look at, like the stuff already mentioned. Would take a while to come up with a list.
I know in my case, if I am ever looking again, I will read up a bit on home inspections and how to frame a house. My house has framing flaws that, if I knew what I was looking for, would have skipped, had I any knowledge. As a result, when I am idly looking at Zillow, if I see anything with a cathedral ceiling it's automatically out. If I were to go look at some place, anything with balloon framing would be off my list too.
Next up would be "complicated" roofs, ones that have lots of hips/valleys. Meaning, expensive when it will need a roof. Then probably anything with heat tape--if it needs heat tape then something's wrong.
Is the basement dry? How damp does it get?
Front/rear doors, are they wide? It's always fun to have to remove doors so as to move a couch, or fridge. Speaking of, how many steps up and down? Can I move a bed up a flight of stairs?
Next house we buy (if ever) we plan to look at handicap considerations. Will we be able to run scooters around, in our old age?
How are the trees? Apparently it can be a kilobuck to remove a tall tree. Is the house meeting current setback rules? What else isn't conforming that might cause problems if I do an addition or whatever? Can I drive through the yard, so as to move trailers around? How bad will it be to back up into the backyard? Where will I be able to work on my cars?
My wife hates forced hot air, so for her it'd be an automatic fail. We do like recirculating hot water, but I could go either way--IMO I'd have less moisture problems with hot air, but my wife insists that her sinuses do better with hot water.
Pretty sure before we bought our house, the wife went through with a tape measure so as to size up the rooms and then plot out where things would go. Again, that's something we'd be apt to do. We might not go nuts on a first walk through, but if the market is hot then I guess that first shot is going to get a close looking-at.
In this order:
1) price
2) property taxes, HOA fees
3) location (macro--part of city or which suburb, proximity to work, shopping, etc.)
4) location (micro--within the community)
5) size of yard, front & back
6) style & layout of house
We looked at many pre-existing homes and ended up buying a builders model last year instead. This is what we looked for, also in order.
1. Location
2. Schools
3. Price
4. Taxes
5. square footage, lay out and size of the rooms
6. Size of yard
7. number of bedrooms & bathrooms
8. Is it updated and if so do I like it?
9. Does the neighborhood have a lot of families with kids.
10. How much work or any would we want to do and what would be the price of those items
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