After a few months of house hunting I have learned quite a bit about this process, and more about foundations, electrical panels and septic tanks than I care to know. Every place is different when it comes to home buying, we even noticed major differences in the span of a few miles, but here are the basics of what I learned, most of which I believe are pretty universal.
- Its way more emotional than you think. Seriously it is like a roller coaster, you get so attached and then you lose the house one way or another and it feels like you are starting from scratch.
- What you want in the beginning will may not be what you want half way through or at the end of the process. While we stayed with the same basic idea, our priorities changed a lot. We realized how much a big back yard outweighed a second bathroom, and that we actually did really want a fireplace.
- You have no idea what the seller is thinking. Don’t even try to guess. We had the higher offer on one house and the seller still chose the lower offer. We have no idea why.
- The other houses in the neighborhood can affect the value of your house. If your house is the nicest house on the street its value could be dragged down by the houses around it.
- The orientation of the house can affect the amount of light that the house gets. This one is kind of intuitive, but it’s something that we kept forgetting to consider while we were visiting many homes. Knowing that the living room never gets sunlight but the bedroom is in direct morning light can really affect how you feel about the house.
- Foundations are always a problem spot. We saw 1 maybe 2 houses that did not have some issue with the foundation.
- Closing costs are probably more than you think. First off there are the loan fees, taxes, lawyer fees, the inspection fees, if you have a septic, that’s another inspection and fee. It all adds pretty quickly.
- No amount of research will prepare you for walking into that nasty old living room. The pictures might be great, it might be in the best location, and the price is amazing, but then you walk in the door and realize the ceiling is only 6 feet high, the walls are actually painted particle board, and that cool brick fireplace is actually brick wall paper.
- You may never get that Everyone talks about getting a “feeling” when they walk into the house they want. Sometimes you go with the house that makes sense, and the feeling comes after. Some people need to see their stuff in the house to get all the feels.
- You can fire your realtor. We didn’t have this problem, our realtor was awesome, but I have known people who were unsatisfied and stopped working with them, even if you signed up with them there is a way out, though you may need lawyer to help you figure it out.