Hi all,
I have a date with a real estate agent on Sunday afternoon to begin looking at properties in the San Diego area. What important questions should I ask about each house?
Thanks!
We just bought a house in La Jolla last month. You might want to check SDlookup.com. It is kind of helpful in getting some back info on properties you may be interested in. Goodluck and happy house hunting. We’ve been looking not on an active basis for 2 years before we found the dream home for us. I guess for realtors you’d want them to work for you and not the seller.
How old are the water tank/furnace/air conditioner and related components?
Will they be leaving any appliances? How old are they?
How old is the roof?
Has there ever been any water damage? Are there any current water problems?
IMHO all that stuff is very important to find out, because it’s all stuff that needs to keep running/keep in shape and will need to be replaced someday. You’ll need to know WHEN all this stuff needs to be replaced (age-wise) because that will add on costs to your purchase sooner or later. Hopefully later!
And in San Diego…how many houses on this block are in foreclosure? Are they vacant? Occupied by squatters?
San Diego proper is great because you can look up crime statistics for the address and see how much criminal activity goes on in the neighborhood (and what type) within a certain time frame and area.
We also look at the Megan’s Law website, you might not want to buy a house that shares an alley with an apartment complex full of sex offenders that overlooks your backyard.
If by “area” you mean east, be careful. In Jamul we saw a house we backpedaled out of pretty quickly as it had clearly been used to make meth in, a highly toxic environment. Not cool at all for the agent to let us walk in.
For the less area specific questions that are very important to homebuying, I’d check out NOLO’s guide from the library and their California specific guide. We still haven’t bought our first home (we moved from the SD area, and may be moving again in a year) but I felt much more confident about the process after reading these.
“So, uh, out of interest… how many people have been murdered here?”
Don’t limit yourself to speaking to the agent or the owners. If you happen to run into someone passing by who might live in the neighbourhood, ask them what they think of the area - what they like, what they hate, whether there’s anything to keep an eye out for.
Ask how recently the house was painted and what work had been done in the last year - a quick paint-and-plaster job can cover up a whole lot of cracks and damp. Watch out, too, if the place smells of anything (paint, incense, cooking, etc.) - it’s a common means of hiding damp and rot. When I was looking at one place, the agent must have been caught without her incense because in the ten minutes between her turning up and opening the house, she actually fried up a piece of fish she found and dumped it in the garbage to cover the smell of a moldy kitchen.
Bring a compass or GPS and work out where South is. Looking at what’s above the horizon to 90 degrees either side will let you guess much light each room and the backyard will get, even if they insist on showing you the place after work.
We managed to sidestep a rather large potential problem house when I asked the across-the-street neighbor about it while he was watering his yard and he told me the previous owner (a coke dealer) had been shot dead in it. :eek:
Ask questions about the neighborhood of a potential house, try to find out about noisy neighbors or other source of noise, such as industry, school, highways or busy street, also distances to stores or any other facilities you may visit regularly.
On the other hand, if you have (or will have) school aged children, proximity to school could be an asset
is it haunted?
but seriously, wouldn’t it be great if you could spend a few days living in the house before you bought it? most neighborhoods seem quiet and nice during the day when you wander through the house, but what is the neighborhood really like 24/7?
house problems you can get fixed, neighbors you cannot change.
Yeah, chatting up the neighbors is a good idea if you can swing it.
And really, do pay attention to what the houses next door are like…
http://www.laweekly.com/2008-07-31/news/rathouse-of-the-palisades/1
Not at first viewing, but if you go back a second time:
Check the traffic and noise at rush hour. That wide shady boulevard may become a honking traffic jam. All the kids will be home and playing so you can judge that better than when they are in school.
Check the compass to see if the patio or pool will be in sun or shade in the afternoon, whichever you think is better.
Check the neighbors for aggressive or neglected dogs that will be a constant irritant.
And do look over the fence at the second next neighbor’s property. Our prospective house was fine, but two doors down the yard behind his was not in the city limits. So it had no law to keep it clean and that neighbor kept a virtual junkyard of scrap cars, boats, rusting office furniture and huge piles of bikes etc. We presumed he was also the local fence for stolen goods. Which brought noise and unexplained fighting and strife all night.
Yeah. I have a house next door that is a rental and a revolving door of “undesirables”. My overly large garage has its back to it. I made a large sign to hang on it:
INDUSTRIAL/DEATH METAL VOCALIST/4TH GUITAR NEEDED
STRONG WORK ETHIC! PRACTICE EVERY NIGHT, HERE, 10PM-4AM
MUST HAVE TRANSPORTATION! PLENTY OF AMPS AND MICS AVAILABLE FOR RIGHT PERSON!
Been empty for months…
You should also check proximity to sketchy apartments.
In California you can get details on the test scores for all schools, especially the ones associated with the house. I don’t know about down there, but where I live home values are strongly correlated with test scores. Even if you don’t have kids, it will affect the value of the property.
You also need to check the appraised value of the house. There has been a problem lately of houses not appraising at the sale price. The mortgage company won’t write a mortgage over the appraised value. Theoretically the seller has to eat it, but it might cause a big headache. The issue is the number of foreclosed houses used as comps. Just a word of warning.
Great scheme - until the grunge metal band moves in next door that practises until 5 am 
I always recommend homebuyers to visit floodsmart.gov and check the flood risk on the properties they’re looking at. It has a little tool to input the address and check the risk.
You can also go to msc.fema.gov and look at the actual flood maps for the area.
Yes, San Diego has flood zones. I checked.
It goes without saying, but get a professional inspection by someone you find yourself – not someone referred by your agent or mortgage broker. That caused us a few minor snags and it took us two months to close, but I still think it was the way to go. Remember that even if your agent works for you, she really works for herself and she doesn’t get paid unless a deal closes.
You might ask for the last MIBOR listing befroe the current one. That can give you useful information about the property, especially if it sold relatively recently or for a lot less money. It can also give you some useful information about the sellers’ motivation, which can help you during the price negotiations.
Ooohhh! That should be good for at least $25,000 off the asking price!
Call the police and ask about the neighborhood. Visit the neighborhood during different hours of the day and night and view the activity.