Throughout and just after college, I moved every single year. I bounced from rental to rental. I loved the excitement of living in a new place every year and never minded moving. I liked that any maintenance, repairs, and landscaping were always handled by the landlord. But as the years went on and Tired Dad Dave and I got engaged, we knew we wanted to buy a house and really make it our own.
I thought that having all the experience of living in so many types of homes that I would know exactly what I was looking for in a house. We both also worked in the mortgage industry at that time, so we were well versed on house inspections and more.
When we found the house we live in now, we were immediately in love with it. We thought it was in great shape and it fit our needs well. We thought it would be a house we lived in for 5 years at the most.
8 years later we are still there and unfortunately, even though the inspection went well when we bought the house, the homeowners did a great job of cosmetically covering major flaws. Luckily, we were able to get an Ohio home warranty for the house, and knowing that we have it has eased some of the strain of constantly dumping money into repairing the house.
If I were able to give my younger self some home-buying advice, I would say – “Look closely. Look for areas that look like they were recently painted over. Make sure the windows open and shut smoothly. Check behind the giant bushes out front for the structural soundness of the porch (i.e. look for a huge, gaping hole being hidden by the bushes!). Consider what it might be like to live in the house for a few years longer than your original deadline and be sure to have the money to cover the major repairs the house will need as those years pass – replacing the roof, waterproofing the basement, replacing the furnace and/or water heater, etc.”
I’m sure at that time, I would have nodded my head and pretended to listen. But maybe there would have been a part of me that would have taken some of these factors into account and we could have gone into our first home with our eyes opened and not fooled by that extra coat of paint covering the crack in the living room ceiling or the cute curtains covering the impossible to open windows.
What about you? If you could give your younger self advice when buying your first home what would it be? Did the previous owners of your home pull the wool over your eyes too with their cosmetic cover-ups?
Compensation was received. The honest opinions are my own.
I’d just tell my younger self to leave all emotion at the curb when looking and make the assessment from my head – not my heart.
As I was driving to close on my first house, I got the call that things did not look well for my daughter. What was supposed to be a happy day was not. I hurried and painted, ripped out carpet, etc. Then I moved in then went to another state where she was diagnosed as terminal. I came home and needless to say my focus was her. She died. 2 months and 3 days after that closing.
My first home was and is bittersweet. *Hijack over. Sorry.
We bought our house many years ago, and are still here. We were young and just didn’t know much about heating, windows, the roof, water heater, etc., and all that. We just weren’t educated in houses. There were very few houses for sale in our price range in the area we wanted to live in so when this house came up for sale we bought it. I have no regrets. (The weather is close to perfect, and the area is beautiful.) The house is small, and needed a lot of work, but it has served us well. It’s not a dream home, but what we have. As long as it wasn’t falling apart, we were going to buy it.
We bought the house from a Real Estate Agent. No, she didn’t try and conceal anything. I think the dirt did a lot of concealing which she had no idea about.
I’d tell my younger self to be more firm when it comes to having the seller FIX things that were their responsibility to fix. We wanted this house so badly seven years ago that we “overlooked” a draining/plumbing problem… overlooked on purpose thinking we could live with it, that is. NOW we know that when it finally has to be dealt with, it will be OUR thousands of dollars having to fix it. Should have had them deal with it right away even if we needed to pay for part of it… then it would be done. Ah, hindsight. :-(
Katharina angelsandmusic[at]gmail[dot]com
We just bought our first house. The inspection went well, too. However, after moving in the air conditioning season started and we found a problem. The drain around the hot water heater (that we insted be replaced because of rust) and heater and air conditioner was sealed with cement. That’s why the hotwater heater was rusted. I wonder why that wasn’t noted in the inspection report? Welcome to home ownership, right?