GrillingFool
Head Chef
In no particular order:
MAKE SURE your mortgage payment includes your insurance and property tax pro-rated payment, if that is what you want.
Ask the owner about flooding during heavy rains. Turns out our yard becomes a pond in one spot when it rains more than 1 inch.
Get a home inspection. Do your own. Open every drawer, every closet, look in the heat registers for filth. Check the furnace filter... a filthy one means poor maintenance, might have it checked specially. Look around the hot water heater for leaks, under sinks for leaks, etc. (A home inspector saved us from buying a house with a garage addition that had to be torn down before the house could sell.)
Make sure there are plenty of electrical outlets. Check the fuse box and ask for the circuit breakers to be labeled.
Ask about the neighbors! Introduce yourself before you buy and ask the neighbors about the owners! (We found out that the people across the street were 36 hour party people with many friends... no thanks.)
Be sure and ask the neighbors about the condo association. How do they respond to claims, are the fees always rising, are the people in charge competent, etc.
And don't buy a house unless you have a few thousand dollars readily available for emergencies. Things will break just when you had that root canal and had to replace the car's transmission.
MAKE SURE your mortgage payment includes your insurance and property tax pro-rated payment, if that is what you want.
Ask the owner about flooding during heavy rains. Turns out our yard becomes a pond in one spot when it rains more than 1 inch.
Get a home inspection. Do your own. Open every drawer, every closet, look in the heat registers for filth. Check the furnace filter... a filthy one means poor maintenance, might have it checked specially. Look around the hot water heater for leaks, under sinks for leaks, etc. (A home inspector saved us from buying a house with a garage addition that had to be torn down before the house could sell.)
Make sure there are plenty of electrical outlets. Check the fuse box and ask for the circuit breakers to be labeled.
Ask about the neighbors! Introduce yourself before you buy and ask the neighbors about the owners! (We found out that the people across the street were 36 hour party people with many friends... no thanks.)
Be sure and ask the neighbors about the condo association. How do they respond to claims, are the fees always rising, are the people in charge competent, etc.
And don't buy a house unless you have a few thousand dollars readily available for emergencies. Things will break just when you had that root canal and had to replace the car's transmission.