My wife and I bought a house in the manner you describe before we got married. Her name was on the lease, not mine (that later changed when we refinanced). We drafted a brief contract that made it clear that we both had an interest in the house and that if we broke up and one of us wanted to stay in the house, they other person would get the opportunity to buy out the other. If both wanted the house, then it would be sold and any proceeds split. IIRC, we had a lawyer draw up the agreement. It was my wife’s idea and a good one, also it provided me with some protection if she had died, or been incapacitated before we got married.
I know you’ve already put in the offer, but one (non-financial) thing is to check all the measurements of the house.
When we bought our house, we got a lot of stuff replaced by the seller (it had been on the market 9 months and gotten no offers, I think she would have agreed to anything just to sell) and we got an inspection and all that. About a year later we had a screen door break so I schlepped down to the home depot to get a new one.
Turns out that doorway is not a standard size, so we’d have to special order a door to fit in that space, and doing that would cost $400.
Another thing: when we bought the house, my wife and I were the only ones living there, so we rarely needed to close the interior doors and just left them open. Except now we have a toddler - and he can push open half the interior doors because they don’t set right in the frame and therefore won’t latch. Other doors will always swing open or shut by themselves because they’re unbalanced - can’t open a door and have it stay open, which is really annoying if you’re going in and out of the same room.
Last thing I’d check is the appliance age. We got an inspection in February, so it’s pretty hard to test the Air Conditioning when it’s close to snowing. However, once it warmed up, it turned out we have a slow coolant leak in our 16 year old air conditioners. Honestly, if the appliances are more than a decade old, it might be worth asking for them to get replaced - depending of course, on how good a deal the house is and whether there are other offers.
I know you’ve put in an offer, but you can amend anything to the offer after the inspection whether the home inspector found it or not. There are a lot of things the inspector doesn’t really look for that you need to check for yourself. Things like noise on Friday nights (any high schools nearby) or whether the neighbor’s dog likes to pee on your front door. My advice is to bring a tape measure and check things yourself, check all the doors for drafts and how easy they are to open (I know your dad looked at things but it’s not his house and he can miss things), and drive by the house with your windows open late friday and late saturday.
Last piece of advice: I’m personal friends with a guy that’s been doing home inspections for decades. One day we were chewing the fat and I asked about his job. One of the things he said stuck with me “I never, ever lie on a home inspection. That could mean my job and it’s against my beliefs anyway. But when I’m doing an inspection I often ask ‘Do you want this house to pass or do you want me to find everything wrong with it?’” You really want the inspector to do the latter, whether he admits it or not, because otherwise you’ll have some painful consequences down the road.
Wait, you need equity to hire a real estate broker? Or are you saying that your financial situation necessitated equity so you could afford a real estate broker?
I realize you’ve already made the offer but my #1 standard advice is: never, ever borrow as much as the lender says you can borrow. Borrow what you can afford right now, and by “afford,” I mean there is money left over every month for utilties, gas, food, clothing…
Well, since you asked.
- Bones (floor plan, elevation, architecture, lot orientation, lot size and lot location in the development). These are things that you cannot change without major $'s or just outright moving to another house.
- Mechanicals (foundation, framing, roof, walls, gas, water, plumbing, sewer/septic, electrical, HVAC, windows, basement, drainage).
and lastly:
Cosmetics–most of this is relatively inexpensive. Paint, wallpaper, tile, window coverings and even kitchen & bathrooms remodels are inexpensive compared to damage that can be done by faulty plumbing or a bad roof.
Unless the buyer is utterly unfamiliar with basic tools and unwilling to learn, things like nonstandard door sizes, mishung doors etc. are not deal-breakers.
Learn to fix 'em, and fix 'em.
Tonight we will most likely have an accepted offer.
We’ve been discussing title/lease type things so something will be worked out there so everyone is taken care of properly.
Luckily, my father is a home pro (carpenter/renovator 30+ yrs) and also knows plumbers, electricians etc so any issues, we already at least know someone who can do quality work without ripping us off.
The home is actually under our budget so we are not at all stretching ourselves financially. Our rent we have now is very doable and the mortgage/taxes/insurance on this place will be less (and we rent a house and pay ALL utilities too).
The only appliance that seemed old looking through the house and the disclosures is the aircon which we asked for the one year home warranty to cover, everything else was new/ish. We are planning on either it breaking this summer or us buying one in the next couple years. If the inspection turns up anything else we will look into it.
I assume your father has flushed all the toilets and checked how well the doors were hung etc. All houses have surprises, but you want to try to minimize them.
One more thing to do - go back at night, or on weekends, and check the neighborhood. You want to see if anyone is having loud parties etc. When we bought a house in NJ, we went on a surprise visit when it was raining, to check if the basement was dry. It was, and we never had a problem. You might want to do something similar.
As for standard doors, windows, and stuff, it depends on where you are. The house my wife grew up in was over 100 years old, so of course nothing was standard. We rented a house slightly older. The local hardware store was very good at customizing things like screens and blinds for the size your windows really are. There are pluses and minuses to old houses, but it shouldn’t be a show stopper.
And be friendly to the current owners. It is nice when they leave you all the manuals and stuff.
Another thing to do – drive to the house at the time you’d normally leave for work, then go to work from there and observe what your typical commute will be like every day. Also do it on the way home from work.
I Facebook stalked the shit out of my would-be neighbors as well when we were buying. Check the sex offender registry, too. Find out who built the house and ask around about the contractor.
You know, I never considered myself a klutz, but we did replace some non-standard doors ourselves, and it was a pain in the ass and took all day for one door. And it looks like shit because I’m not a professional.
OP’s dad is a carpenter, so maybe she’ll squeeze some free labor out of him to do this stuff, but I think it’s a disservice to handwave issues like that away. “Oh, learn carpentry, it doesn’t matter if nothing is the right size” is easy to say, but in my experience it’s a bitch to do when you could have had a normal sized house instead.
Luckily for us, this won’t be a factor, we are renting now, and the house WE JUST GOT THE OFFER ACCEPTED ON is literally 90 seconds away. Just down the street a ways. The house we live in now sucks or we would have bought it from our landlords 
I think my pops will definitely make us learn plenty of stuff, and we are willing. My bf isn’t totally home useless, but I pretty much am at this point.
And the open house for this one was held on a rainy day - basement was dry as a drum. The house we live in now is the opposite - it’s raining now and the basement is WET.
Now is on to inspections etc…the ‘fun’ part, right?
I just closed on my house today, so stick in there, keep your eyes open, and it’s not over until it’s over 
Expect some last minute crisis during closing. I’ve bought 3 houses and there was always something stressful at the last minute.
Actually, Angie’s List is a great tool to find who has paid to be on Angie’s List. So you’ll find who has a larger budget for marketing.
You cannot pay to be on Angie’s List. All service provider entries are made by people who are members of the list and clients of the service providers.
You can pay to advertise in the Angie’s List magazine, though. Only if you have a high enough rating from members.
ServiceMagic, however, is a paid deal.