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When you are looking at houses for sale, what do you look for? 

It is a struggle to turn off the judgement machine churning away in our heads.  When walking around someone else’s house, we rush to critique their tastes (or lack thereof), look at the photos to see if we know anyone, or try out the furniture/bathrooms.

But if you can get beyond that, and focus on specific clues, you can find out plenty about the houses – and their owners – and use it to your advantage.

Specifically, what can buyers look at to find valuable information?

1.  Curb Appeal – Look at the palm trees – are they established, or are they the Home Depot cheapies that were rushed into the ground a couple of hours ago?  Even if you just planted them just to sell the house, you can buy well-grown trees that add appeal.  The seller’s choice of palms can tell you how they maintain the house, and whether they cut corners.

2.  The Approach - Walking up to the house, and while waiting for the door to open, study everything in the immediate vicinity.  This is your first impression, and a preview of what to expect inside.  Is the door and door trim impeccible?  Nice clean mat?  Screens on the windows?  Spider webs or hornet’s nests in the eves?

3.  Cosmetic Quicky? – The facia board is  the wood that wraps around the eaves and creates the transition between house and roof.  This is where you can gauge how thorough the seller has been with exterior maintenance.  If he threw on a quicky roof, he probably didn’t replace the old facia boards – and probably treated the rest of the house the same way, taking shortcuts.   It’s also a place where you can get a feel for the quality of construction.

4.  Water Intrusion – Check the bottom of the stucco/siding – there should be a gap of two to four inches between the stucco screed and the ground.  If the dirt level is touching the stucco, water is probably making its way into the house, and so are termites.  This same gap is where you’ll find cracks in the slab.  If you are really analytical, look through binoculars at the roof for cracks/holes.

5.  Listen Closely – Any traffic noise outside?  How about annoying kids or yapping dogs?  Hard to detect when so much else is going on, but you don’t want to miss any problematic noise here.  BTW, if the street has a double-yellow stripe, it has too much traffic.

6.  Kitchen Sink – Once inside the house, check out the kitchen sink and surrounding area.  If it is old and tired-looking, that probably means the rest of the house has taken a beating too.

7.  Paint and Carpet – You want to buy a house that needs paint and carpet.  Why?  Because most buyers make a snap decision that they are fixers, and pass on them.  Make sure the rest of the house has "good bones", and if the only thing that is wrong is new carpet and paint, then make a low offer.  With buyers looking for any reason NOT to buy, this is an opportunity to find a motivated seller who hasn’t seen many, if any, offers. 

8.  Refrigerator – Want to know more about the sellers’ financial situation?  Look in the refrigerator – lots of hints there.

9.   Divorce-meter – Check the master bedroom closet.  If you know that a married couple owns the house, but there is only one type of clothing in the closet, you know what happened.

10.  Listing Agent – Even if the house checks out, the listing agent can still blow the sale for you.  Have your buyer’s agent look up the sales history of the listing agent for the most recent year.  If they have sold a few houses, then they know how tough the market is, and will be giving great advice to the sellers.  If the listing agent hasn’t had much recent sales history, they’ll probably still be in la-la land about waiting for the lucky sale.  Don’t expect much from them in advising the sellers to negotiate a market-value price.  Want a quick read on the listing agent?  Look at their pictures, and remarks – specifically if they note ‘seller to select all services’ – that remark is so 2004.

These tips are just the beginning – an experienced buyer’s agent brings insights like these to every property, and can help you from making a mistake.  Get good help!

Posted on Sunday, September 2nd, 2007 at 1:08 PM in Thinking of Buying?, Thinking of Selling?, Top-10 Lists | 5 Comments » |  Print You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.