What do you wish you knew when buying a house?

In My Humble Opinion
1

For the past few months, Mr Sven and I have been looking at houses. We are pre-approved and ready to go. Unfortunately, we live in a pricey market and working with a budget.

Between space, condition, location and schools, we are going to have to make some trade-offs. And since we will likely live in this house 5-10 years, we definitely need something that isn’t going to lose value in that span.

How did you prioritize your house search? How did it work out for you? What do you wish you had done differently? Have any of your mistakes come back to haunt you?

2

Pasture space for the horses. A good yard for the dogs.

StG

3

We bought our second house last year. We bought our first house ten years ago. The process the second time around was much easier because we were a little more confident in what we could work around and what were deal breakers.

Have things like a house inspector lined up. It is best if you don’t use the agent’s inspector since your inspector won’t care about torpedoing the deal, and burning bridges with a referral source. Remember that the inspector won’t be able to find every little problem since some things can be buried.

I’m in the DC area and one thing to be mindful of is the age of the house. How old is the wiring? Is there aluminum wiring? Does the house have asbestos (Probably yes, if you are looking at something built from 1930 to 1970)

Our search the first time was a trade-off of location, potential appreciation, and space. We wound up near what was becoming the H Street corridor in Washington. Our second was a balance of schools, location (how far is the commute), and space. I think that there are diminishing returns when focusing solely on schools, and Great Schools Scores. Is the price difference between a school that scores 7 and one that scores a 9 worth it?

Where are you looking?

4

First, if you haven’t hired an agent yet, use Redfin. Seriously. They saved me tens of thousands of dollars in buying and selling a house. Actual, real money.

Second, in DC, I think you are well served by being patient and decisive. You’ll see a lot of houses where you will think, “Well, this could work…” But eventually, you’ll find one that speaks to you: “I know I’m not getting everything on my list, but this one hits my top priorities, and I want it!” Then act FAST!!!

Spend some time now gathering all your documentation for your loan - pay stubs, tax returns, the forms where you have to declare if you’re getting a gift to cover some of the down payment, and more. Just every damned financial thing you can think of, get it organized, so you put your new pay stub in that box or folder or whatever. Getting all that together is a huge pain in the ass when you’re being pressured by your bank to get everything in to them likerightnowthismoment after your bid is accepted.

Look beyond the color of the paint on the walls, obviously, but also keep an eye out for things that you might want to fix or upgrade when you eventually have the money again… and don’t fool yourself that it will be cheap. Sprucing up that stale old kitchen with some new appliances… and maybe nicer cabinets… and wouldn’t it be more functional with an island right there, or opening up that wall a little? BAM! $40 grand.

Finally, spend a lot of time thinking about schools. Boundaries in DC shift over time, so keep that in your calculation. Like on the Hill, you might find a house where you’re inbound for Brent – fantastic! Oh, wait, that line for Brent is actually drawn on your street. In a couple years, that line may very well move a block over so you’re inbound for Tyler. Not good news. ETA: I differ with CaffineAddict in that in some parts of DC, the area for a quite good school can literally be right next to the boundary for a very lousy school. But since you’re likely to move before middle school age, this is somewhat less of a problem, because some good elementary schools feed into lousy middle schools.

Frankly, I wouldn’t be very worried about the house losing value over the next decade.

5

We lucked in to buying an end of the block rowhouse. I hadn’t really thought about it, but when I see how dark some of the middle of the block rowhouses get, I’m glad we did. I’m also glad that we bought a house right off of a main street (NH Ave) rather than on it. Our neighbors across the alley who live on NH have a much noisier experience than we do, even though we’re so close. The Metro line also runs under their house and they can feel it vibrate when a train goes through.

Given that a lot of flips are done quickly and sloppily, I’d be really hesitant to buy one. Look for the tell-tale beige or grey painted brick and the bright red or blue front door. WAMU did a story on flipped houses that will freak you out Flipped Off In D.C.’s Thriving Market For Renovated Homes, It’s Buyer Beware.

Don’t get hung up on cosmetics that can easily be fixed. We bought a structurally sound house that was painted horrible colors rather than a generic flip and used the savings to make it the way we like.

6

Something that was important for me was having separate spaces. I grew up in a home where the kitchen, dining and living rooms were basically one great big space. No separate family room or den. I remember when my parents first bought it, it seemed amazing to have this big space where everyone could basically be together. However, it made it really difficult for some people to be watching TV and other to be having a conversation in the kitchen while cooking or to be playing board games at the dining room table. There was just too much noise. For us, we ended up with a house that had the family room and kitchen as one room, but a separate dining room and living room. Kind of the best of both worlds.

7

A general home inspection isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. If you are really interested in a house, get separate inspections done by contractors who specialize in areas of concern. Our home inspector missed BIG FUCKING HOLES in the exterior walls that caused substantial flooding, a rotten corner of the roof (more flooding), a burned-out AC unit, and several wiring issues. The only thing he actually spotted was a beyond-expected-lifespan water heater, which turned out to be the only thing in the house that didn’t need replacing.

8

Something that worked out well for us:

We only seriously considered (and eventually chose) a house that had been well maintained (neat, fixtures in good condition), rather than updated. The house is 50 years old, but has the original kitchen cabinets and paneling on the walls. The few things that had been updated (bathroom cabinets, kitchen appliances) were done with high-quality materials. We haven’t had any bad surprises with the house yet. People who take good care of the things you can see and plan renovations carefully usually did the same thing with the stuff that isn’t immediately apparent.

The house my husband bought when he was single was an example of the opposite. When he bought it, it was clear that the previous owners had avoided spending any money on updates, and had been hard on the floors, counters, etc., which were worn. Sure enough, over the years, he found all kinds of other issues that had been ignored or done sloppily–a leaky pipe that wasn’t repaired, broken fixtures left in place, a deck without proper footings, etc. I lived with him in that house for awhile, and it was a lot of work and headaches to fix these things.

I would add, keep a critical eye on houses where updates have been done just before listing the house–for example, a fully renovated kitchen was a common update many people did before listing a house in the neighborhood where we were looking. More often than not, the owners cut corners on the renovation, hoping that buyers would be distracted by the newness and ignore the fact that they put in relatively few cabinets, or cheap appliances, or that the kitchen was now all hard surfaces and echoed a lot, or all of the above. Asking prices on these houses were relatively high for the neighborhood. The owners of these properties also often seemed to use the appeal of the “new kitchen!” as a distraction and an excuse to not fix lots of other, lower priority issues with the property that would ultimately cost a buyer significant money. (For example, one property with a cheap kitchen reno also had very dangerous, rickety basement stairs–and the laundry was located in the basement.)

I would encourage you to stick to your guns on your budget. You will eventually find something that will work for you. We looked for over 2 years before we found our place (under our original budget). Not only did that give us time to figure out what was truly important, but our down payment (invested in a moderate-risk mutual fund) grew so much that we ended up not touching the original funds at all because the gains were almost exactly 20% of the purchase price. Good luck and patient hunting.

9

Great advice- keep it coming. I don’t want to get too deep in to DC specifics, but we are looking at around $400k in Montgomery County. We know the area pretty well.

10

I don’t think we really differ. My point is that once you get above a certain score, it doesn’t make much difference in the education that your child will receive. If you are looking in the District, there is free Preschool and Pre-Kindergarten from the age of 3 up. We gave up on DC as the cost of getting into a good neighborhood school and a house with four bedrooms was really high compared with something in the suburbs.

Go to Home Depot and look at the tile and the sinks. If you see the same ones in a “newly renovated” home, you are looking at a flip. Also, if you see glass mosaic that was on sale at Home Depot, you are looking at a flip. Take a good look at the websites for the permitting offices for where you are looking. The have permit information available online. We passed on a house in Virginia, that had a bunch of new lighting, the kitchen re-positioned, and the sun room converted to a finished space, because no permits were pulled for the work.

11

Since you are looking in Montgomery County, here is the website for the Permitting office. I would search any house that you are interested in to make sure that work done was done correctly.

12

This is super, super obvious and I actually knew it going into my first house purchase, but wish I’d considered it in a little more detail.

It is literally all about the location.

Not even necessarily things like school district and commutes, but things like “How long is it going to take me to get to the movie theater?” or “Where’s the closest grocery store?”

Our current neighborhood is fine and all, but one of the primary reasons my husband and are planning to buy a new house in the next year or two is because our current house is a minimum of fifteen minutes from virtually everything we do on a regular or semi-regular basis. It’s not even out in the boonies - it’s just smack in the middle of a vast tract of essentially nothin’ but houses.

There’s a shopping center on the nearest major intersection to us, but the only business establishment it includes that we actually might use is a WalMart, and then only in cases of desperation. The next-closest place to purchase, for example, groceries contains both of our favored grocery stores, but is 15 minutes away (10 if we get lucky with lights). It’s not a LOT of time, but it’s a big enough pain in the ass that we’re moving at least in part to be closer to stuff.

If you watch a lot of movies in the theater, how far is the closest one to you? If you’re into crafts, how far to the nearest Michael’s? Favorite restaurant? If you eat out on a regular basis, are there options nearby that don’t necessarily ask if you want fries with that? If you do want fries with that, is there a handy McDonald’s/Burger King/Wendy’s/whatever?

Provided the house is structurally sound and contains all the normal functioning bits, you can fix ugly and there’s even a lot in the way of inconvenient layout/insufficient storage that you can either fix or work around over time, but you can’t do a damn thing about where the house is.

13

I’m very good at picturing a finished, lived in house, which both helped and hurt when I was house shopping. It helped because, unlike a lot of the morons on House Hunters, we didn’t turn down any houses just because the bathroom was an icky color. It hurt because we ultimately bought a house that had never been updated, so every single room needs to be modernized in some way. Part of that is we wanted to live in a certain neighborhood and were reluctant to compromise on a lot of things, so we took what we could get. But part of that was me thinking, “Oh, this room just needs a few things and it will look great!” And then I’d walk to the next room and, “Oh this room just needs a few things and it will look great!” And then the next room…

Long story short, I’ve lived here 6 years and I’m only about halfway finished. At this point, it’ll be 15 years of tolerating at least some crummy rooms because we bit off a bit more than we could chew, both from a time perspective (3 kids and a couple of jobs really doesn’t leave me wanting to strip wallpaper) and financially (I’m reluctant to do things on the cheap because buyers in this neighborhood expect it.

If I had to do it over again, I may have compromised on some of my requirements (probably location) in order to get a house that needed less remodeling, so I could enjoy the house rather than feeling overwhelmed by it. Of course, if I had done that, I’d probably be in this thread telling you not to compromise on location :slight_smile:

eta: Perfect timing, Aangelica

14

That open floor plans really, really, really suck.

Also that 9-foot ceilings are a pain in the ass.

15

I’m going to concur on the home inspection. Ours somehow missed that the AC unit had been ON FIRE at some point in time, the wires were melted and charred inside.

That said, the best thing that we did during our house hunts was to make a list. Break it down into must haves/nice to haves/do not wants and refer to it at every visit. Basically you’re looking for a way to take emotion off the front burner and put logic there instead. Falling in love with one aspect of a house that doesn’t meet your basic needs is really where you get into trouble.

Key things that we added to the list after our first house hunt that are more generic - closet space near the front door, electrical outlets in at least tolerable locations, storage space in and near the kitchen, laundry that is not in the basement, fenced yard or the ability to do so, off main streets, close to (choose your transit type).

We had some specific requirements like - space for two home offices that are as far apart as possible dueling speakerphones is not fun. So consider what you’ll be doing in your home and what you need to make that possible (must haves) and easy (nice to haves) and make your own list.

16

If there is any landfill close to the house , landfills give of Hydrogen sulfide . I spoke to a neighbor who brought a house for around $600.000 and she didn’t know there was landfill being filled in with sheetrock gypsum . The realtor knew about but didn’t tell the woman.

17

This. We only had a weeklong house hunting trip when we bought our current house, and we had it narrowed down to 2. One was in a nice development, but not close to anything. The other was in an older neighborhood, still nice, but just blocks from a main street. We picked the latter and were glad we did. We are close to everything, walking distance in a pinch, and it really pays off. We’ve never regretted not buying the other house.

One thing I wish we looked at longer was the kitchen. While it was nice, the refrigerator was in a little alcove and the oven/microwave combo was in a wooden cabinet. Almost all newer appliances are bigger now, and it would take a major overhaul to redo the kitchen to use them.

Other things to do if you are close. Go back at night. Get your realtor to let you in during the rain to check for leaks. Run the taps and the showers and flush the toilets to check water pressure. Look for fit and finish for doors and cabinets.
That tells you if the people doing work on the house cared.

18

Don’t refinance. Spend less money instead and keep a careful eye on your finances.

19

Focus WAY primarily on things that cannot be easily changed - mainly location and the general structure/flow of the space.

Location - If noise is going to bother you, don’t buy on that busy street, near the airport, next to a bar. If you hate the way the neighbors keep up their homes, you can’t expect them to move. Drive/walk through the neighborhood at different times on different days to see who is on the streets and in the yards doing what. Think of the trips you make ALL THE TIME - to schools, work, stores, friends/family - how much is it worth to you to add 5-10-20 minutes to each and every one of those trips? Are there any water issues? You will definitely want the house that is 6" higher than your neighbors, than 6" lower…

Structure - Sure, you can tear down/add walls (tho it can be expensive). But do you prefer a ranch instead of a 2 story? Does the living space make sense to you in terms of how you wish to live your lives? Is the outdoor space large enough/too large for your desired lifestyle/maintenance interests?

What is the condition of the building’s main elements? Forget paint and decorating. Is the foundation solid? The wiring and plumbing? Roof, furnace, AC, water heater? Those are the big ticket items. Do the stove and fridge work long enough for you to eat until you can afford to replace them?

Everything else is cosmetic, and can be changed to your tastes over time.

I’m a big advocate of Susan Susanka’s “Not So Big House” approach. Put your money into nice finishes and design, instead of simply volume.

Take very honest stock of how you feel about a house/neighborhood. Some folk very much wish to inhabit a space that somehow appeals to them emotionally. Other folk just want to stay warm and dry from the elements. Do you want to be part of an active community, or will you keep the curtains drawn and simply pull in and out of the garage?

Good luck.

20

Consider stepping down from a house price you’re ‘comfortable’ with, to a slightly reduced price that will put more lifestyle money in your pocket. You may look longer and harder for something you like, but every month, from purchase till you sell, will see you with money for more life!

It’s not about the house, it’s about life!