If you’re considering buying a new home, visit that home and the surrounding neighborhood during a time when neighbors are likely to be out and about. Visit during different times. If you’re a night owl or an early riser, take note of the noise or quiet during the evenings and mornings.
Neighbors can affect the quality of your life. Before you buy, meet the neighbors! They can make or break your experience and can impact the value of your equity.
Costs of Property Taxes and Homeowners Insurance
Taxes will go up, as will insurance. It’s a given. Make sure you can afford MORE THAN you are approved for, as even with a fixed rate mortgage, costs will increase steadily – and often more quickly than you may be prepared for.
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Having a mortgage will strengthen your credit. Taking on a mortgage and making your payments on time can do wonders for your credit rating. Showing that you’re able to consistently pay off a large sum shows lenders that you are credit-worthy and reliable.
How to Maintain Your Home on a Proactive Schedule
I know it is not always possible, but it is worth your while to schedule a time to clean your gutters. Regularly check your roof and take action when you need to paint the exterior or replace rotted pieces.
Keep a calendar for scheduled repairs and stick to it.
Things to Look for When Buying a Home
When buying a home, we often overlook things that we only realize later were actually very important. After talking to some of our followers, we would like to share with you their thoughts and insights.
Zoning
“I didn’t realize how important zoning is when buying a house! Due to the zoning, after buying our home, we found out that we couldn’t build the way we were hoping to. This shows you that it is very important to speak to an architect or expeditor prior to buying if you plan on extending or building.”
Check the Sewer Lines
“I’ll tell you what happened to me. No one advised me to run a camera down my sewer main line. The home inspector did not mention it, so it wasn’t done. He simply turned on all the faucets in the sinks and if the water went down, he said it was fine. The week I moved in, the bathtubs started backing up and the plumber came over and said the sewer main line had collapsed! It cost me $12,000 to replace it. The plumber said, had I ran a camera inspection prior to closing on the house, he would have seen it right away and we could have negotiated with the seller for a lower price or to replace the sewer main line. So, make sure you have the sewer main line inspected with a camera by a professional plumber and make sure to sign up for sewer main insurance from the water company (which also nobody advised me to do).”