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On our first home purchase we hired a seperate inspection through our agent and it was a friend of his. We will not go with friends again. Once we were in my husband found live wires in a room in the basement, very visible. We paid him a couple of hundred bucks.
Did I mention the agent was my sisters boyfriend (now husband) and we wanted to offer lower, he talked us out of that, I worked with the daughter of the people we bought from and found out after that they would have definately gone lower. This being our first purchase, we didn't know that the things that came back with the inspection we could ask to be fixed (broken garage window), our agent didn't tell us and we didn't ask for it. It became our problem when we sold later. They had an option to rent if the house they were building wasn't done. That was fine, but their house was done and they weren't moving out and no one gave us rent so we (not our realtor) went to their new house and got our key so that we could start moving in. They still had dishes in the dishwasher, stuff to move out of the house. The agent is not longer an agent, which is a very good thing.
I would have offered a lower price to start with, and bargained harder. I now know that the sellers were fairly desperate, and my agent knew at the time, I think, but did not really help me (even though I hired her as MY - buyer's - agent, and I think I even paid her!). I would have asked for more price reduction for the drainage and basement-seepage problems (which were expensive to fix!). I would have been ready to walk away (which I wasn't - I really wanted this house - TOO much!).
I have a great house, but I think I paid too much for it (that was in 1994). I was pretty young, though, and totally inexperienced. Live and learn.
Now I'm looking for exactly the same sort of folks to buy it from me!
I would not buy at all my first year new in a town; I'd rent the first year.
I would not buy in a neighborhood where there are several houses with people who are related to each other, or in a neighborhood where there are no other newcomers.
If I wanted a survey I would have the seller do it and correct any discrepancies before my closing.
Sorry, it was 14 years ago. I could look it up, but it wasn't the main point of the story. I have had a LOT of life since then, I guess that detail has gotten pushed out of my brain by the work, child-rearing, volunteer firefighting, and myriad other things that have been a tad more important for the past 14 years. Oops.
Oh, I know she was paid somehow. I just don't remember if "I" paid her or if she got a commission split from the purchase price. At the time there was a fad around here of buyers hiring their own agents and paying them either up front or on top of the purchase price, and I can't remember how we structured the deal at the time.
Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
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It seems a runnnig theme is not to buy a new home. My home was 5 years old when I bought it. I've heard before that if you buy a new home, you have to work the kinks out of it. My wife doesn't like brand new homes. She says they stink. (Of chemicals.)
Thank you guys for these tips. They are really helpful!
I would definitely live and rent in an area for at least a little while prior to buying. I lost money a couple of years ago, bought a quaint little bungalow in what was seemingly a charming older neighborhood down south and put quite a bit into remodeling it. When it was finished, everyone commented how "adorable" it was. The problem was, had I lived in the area for awhile first and taken off the rose-colored glasses, I would have known that the street it was on and parts of the surrounding neighborhod had been going "down-hill" for a few years. I ended up selling just a year later and it took a fast-talking realtor, a buyer who was as nieve as I had been, and about a $6,000 loss to get OUT, and I probably got off lucky.
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