Buying A Home
jesspacatc
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
What to ask when looking at a potential home
Officially starting to look at houses tomorrow - the one we are looking at has been empty for a while and needs a little bit of TLC, but what kinds of questions did you ask when looking at houses? I have a great realtor ) but could use any suggestions possible!
Re: What to ask when looking at a potential home
The answers to most of our questions could be found on the MLS info sheet. If we really liked a home, we asked to see the seller's disclosure form. Another major issue was if the home had a finished basement we checked the SQ footage on the tax assessment and compared it to the SQ footage of the listing. We found a lot of homes that did not match and that usually means that they finished the basement without getting permits (which would then be required before we could close and could result in penality permit fees) and, most important, if the current owners weren't paying taxes on that finished basement, taxes could go up quite a bit after claming the basement SQ footage.
This will vary greatly depending on where you live. Here, finished basement space does not count toward square footage unless there are certain # of egress windows/exits. We finished the basement in our last house and obtained all permits and inspections, but it still didn't count toward legal square footage. It is never a bad idea to ask about permits on those kinds of spaces, though.
For us, we wanted to know about the age of windows, roof, HVAC, etc. That's probably all on the disclosure statemetns though.
Some things to also do research are the county's zoning maps - how close is the property to industrial or commerical zones? And, what are the long-term development plans for the area? To find this you go to the city or county's website and search for zoning info.
We also look at the sex offender registry. How close by is the nearest predetor?
Lastly, we go to a few neighbors' houses of a property we like a lot and are considering putting an offer on. We just introduce ourselves, say we're considering buying the house next door, and wondered if they could let us know what they like or dislike about the neighorhood. You'd be very surpised how happy people are to share their opinions. Through this process we have discovered a ton about a neighborhood.