There isn't a such thing as being too picky when buying a house. It is literally one of these largest investment you will ever make, so this isnt something that should be taken lightly.
What I learned from our process was that home inspections prior to purchase wasn't really a thing. Which is unfortunate because it should be.
My husband and I watched a lot of HGTV, namely real estate shows like My First Place, which was great because even with editting they went into the back and forth of buying a house and the host, who was also a realtor said that as a practice, she never sells a home without a proper home inspection, especially to a first time buyer because you never know what you will find after the paperwork was signed.
This always stuck with me. And also because we watched the renovation shows and we always saw a shit ton of problems that the buyers and investors opened up the walls in their home and found a shit ton of problems. And it always annoyed us why this always seemed to happen with flippers and investors..
But nonetheless, what she said always stuck with me and so, when we found ourselves in this position, a home inspection for the serious houses was requisite. Overall we spent $1,000 on inspections for 2 properties, that we seriously considered. The first one was a house that although was bigger, had no HVAC, a Federal Pacific electrical panel (HUGE FIERY RED FLAG) and our loan officer kept going back and forth on what the taxes were. She would end up confirming in the 13th hour of our decision that taxes for that house would be about $12k a year.. so we didnt go with that house but made the decision before she got back to us about the taxes.
The second was for the house we had now.
And I will tell you that it was the best decision ever, because although that first house was nice, and had a lot of things we loved about it, it was not as good as the house we ended up with and we have the same exact features in our house that we saw in that first one.. and we have HVAC, a fenced yard, screened porch, and fruit trees. And about a $6K difference in taxes and we have a tax rebate so we will get a check every year for that reason.
Our realtor told us that it was the home inspection that put off the sellers, but we were not trying to end up like those we saw on TV or those we knew who had spent more money trying to get their house safe to live in before they even spent money trying to decorate it.
But it paid off immensely because not only do we have a better house, and with HVAC but it appraised for well above asking, and it is still going up and we haven't begun putting our touches on it.. we are focused on getting our stuff organized and put away and then working on the downstairs part of the house..
Anyway, we don't regret our approach regarding this process and our insistence on a home inspection and we will do it again for our next house.
What I learned from our process was that home inspections prior to purchase wasn't really a thing. Which is unfortunate because it should be.
My husband and I watched a lot of HGTV, namely real estate shows like My First Place, which was great because even with editting they went into the back and forth of buying a house and the host, who was also a realtor said that as a practice, she never sells a home without a proper home inspection, especially to a first time buyer because you never know what you will find after the paperwork was signed.
This always stuck with me. And also because we watched the renovation shows and we always saw a shit ton of problems that the buyers and investors opened up the walls in their home and found a shit ton of problems. And it always annoyed us why this always seemed to happen with flippers and investors..
But nonetheless, what she said always stuck with me and so, when we found ourselves in this position, a home inspection for the serious houses was requisite. Overall we spent $1,000 on inspections for 2 properties, that we seriously considered. The first one was a house that although was bigger, had no HVAC, a Federal Pacific electrical panel (HUGE FIERY RED FLAG) and our loan officer kept going back and forth on what the taxes were. She would end up confirming in the 13th hour of our decision that taxes for that house would be about $12k a year.. so we didnt go with that house but made the decision before she got back to us about the taxes.
The second was for the house we had now.
And I will tell you that it was the best decision ever, because although that first house was nice, and had a lot of things we loved about it, it was not as good as the house we ended up with and we have the same exact features in our house that we saw in that first one.. and we have HVAC, a fenced yard, screened porch, and fruit trees. And about a $6K difference in taxes and we have a tax rebate so we will get a check every year for that reason.
Our realtor told us that it was the home inspection that put off the sellers, but we were not trying to end up like those we saw on TV or those we knew who had spent more money trying to get their house safe to live in before they even spent money trying to decorate it.
But it paid off immensely because not only do we have a better house, and with HVAC but it appraised for well above asking, and it is still going up and we haven't begun putting our touches on it.. we are focused on getting our stuff organized and put away and then working on the downstairs part of the house..
Anyway, we don't regret our approach regarding this process and our insistence on a home inspection and we will do it again for our next house.
