What do wish you had paid more attention to before you bought you house? (floor, ceiling)
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I do like very through inspectors and I would never call them deal killers.... but as a buyer's agent, I do call them life savers sometimes! Seriously, you don't want a deal to go through if it's a bad match for the buyer. You want them to know all the gory details. Some buyers don't want, or can't afford, a lot of repairs or remodeling. Some will want the property anyway... either way they're always better off knowing the whole truth.
Agree 100%. I have friends who are inspectors that aren't up with the times. Their reports are essentially "analog", (at least compared to today's technological means) and no where near as detailed as others that I use frequently. For this reason, I do not use them. One of my main guys is also a professional engineer which helps tremendously. The last report I received from him was just north of 160 pages for a 2,000 SqFt home. Thanks to him and his impeccable detail, we were able to back out within the DD period and decided on another property that was better suited. It's always better to know and certain tasks as you go along during ownership than to not know and have bigger issues later on potentially.
With the purchase of the current house: 1. Find a good inspector, which is not easy. 2. Find out something about the neighbors, as it is a good idea to just go by the area at different times of the days, weekdays and weekends.
The insulation! We do okay with wood heat but two rooms in the house are pretty cold when it's super cold out. One is the bathroom, remedied when you take a shower or run the dryer, the other, my small former office where I keep a small space heater on 65. Should have caulked and taken care of this in warm weather, but, it was warm and I was outside!!!
The insulation! We do okay with wood heat but two rooms in the house are pretty cold when it's super cold out. One is the bathroom, remedied when you take a shower or run the dryer, the other, my small former office where I keep a small space heater on 65. Should have caulked and taken care of this in warm weather, but, it was warm and I was outside!!!
Would this have stopped you from purchasing the house?
My issues with my house are mostly architectural. It's a great house in great condition but the garage is twin single doors and barely a foot of space to each side. You have to be careful getting a car in and it's like docking with the space station now that I have a truck. I have an inch clearance on each side. Once in, you cannot open the door on the side near the wall. And there's no way to fix it even with a remodel.
I look to foundation and wiring as I don't have a person that can solve issues easily. Everything else is in hand.
The biggest detail...who I was bringing into the house. To watch my wife/stepdaughter break out past hard time sharing a rented room to becoming individuals was fantastic. To watch the wife continue to propel herself to pampered heiress standards...was shockingly disgusting.
Even having an inspector cannot identify potential issues, especially if the inspector is either lazy or unable to get to hard to reach places because of health and age. Years ago my parents bought a home using an inspector. They loved that the home had living fruit and berry producing plants. The home had been expanded by closing off the carport and turning that into a living room. Had the inspector gone into the attic he would have seen the water damage from the new addition. Had he looked into the breaker panel he would have seen that everything electrical added from the new addition was all connected to one side of the breaker panel. This caused hot circuits and frequent tripped breakers. Multiple roof work done and they still had leaks at the poorly made addition.
It sounds silly perhaps, but I wish I had paid attention to the fact that there are FOUR mature pine trees in the front yard. That is a ton of yard work for most of the year. I pay to have the lawn cut, but when that stop s in the fall, it is on me. Every storm takes several days of clean-up.
It sounds silly perhaps, but I wish I had paid attention to the fact that there are FOUR mature pine trees in the front yard. That is a ton of yard work for most of the year. I pay to have the lawn cut, but when that stop s in the fall, it is on me. Every storm takes several days of clean-up.
I have a half-acre.
That, too. We had three very mature trees. Two were oak trees, the largest in the neighborhood. One was so large it took three people to stretch their arms around the trunk. The amount of leaves they shed was simply stupendous.
But that biggest had been struck by lightning a couple of years before we bought the house. It was so huge though, that even though half dead, it was still mighty. But we had to take it down last year...that cost $4,000. We had a big, old cedar in the back yard that just decided it was done...it fell down (and crushed our shed). That cost $2,000 to remove.
We have another big, old oak that covers our yard and both our neighbors' yards with leaves. It's got three big branches each the size of a medium tree that need to be removed...those will cost us $1,000 each.
My issue is wild animals nearby. From my Ring cameras, discovered we have foxes, coyotes, deer, possums, and rabbits. The foxes and coyotes scare me but now I wonder if bears are in the wooded area not far from where we live. Other than that, other household issues can and will be repaired and/or restored.
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