5 Of the Biggest Mistakes Home Buyers Make

September 9th, 2013 by Robert Hightower

5 of the Biggest Mistakes Home Buyers Make

Buying a home opens up a lot of opportunity for mistakes, issues and problems. You could end up with a house that has a list of problems from noisy neighbors to a leaky roof. Here are 5 potential mistakes for you to avoid during your next home purchase.

Timing the market

Good luck with that, many very smart people have gone broke timing the market. The only way to know when the market has hit the bottom is when you see it going back up. Prices historically go up and down, and sometimes they go way down like they have in this post bubble market.

What you can do is buying during a low, like we have now. If you sit around and wait for the prices to continue down another 5-10% then you notice that interest rates have gone up a full point where does that leave your payment? Might be higher….Every family’s situation is different; usually the best time to buy the home you want is when you can.

Wrong location

Every location has a energy to it, and your new home and its neighborhood should match yours. Some places cater more to families, singles, young or old. Knowing that your location matches you and your situation should go a long ways to making your stay there a happy one. Buying a house is not a short term proposition, to just recoup the moving and expense of selling a home you need to plan on staying between 4-6 years normally.

You want to “kick the tires” of the area. Check it out at different times of day, and different days during the week. Does it have access to your favorite coffee shop? Grocery store schools etc? Make sure the location suits you and your needs before buying.

Can I see the past utility bills please?

Some homes just cost more to run. It can be older appliances, old HVAC unit, single pane windows etc. You don’t want to move into a home expecting that the cooling billing during the summer will be a normal $200 and find out it’s actually $800 that is a surprise you don’t need. If that happened you have two options, live with the high bill or there will be a lot of out of pocket expense to fix it? Ask for the bills.

Don’t fall in love with the staging!

Some homes are professionally staged. For many people they will get excited and think they are going to decorate the home the same way, and it will look fantastic. It will if you hire a designer or if you are a designer, but for most of the rest of us, when we walk into a professionally staged home, that is as good as it will every look! You have to look past this and think will the home suit my needs, will my furniture fit or will I have to buy new, is there enough space, or too much?

Don’t buy a fixer and not fix it

About half of the people that walk into my office here at Hightower Real Estate Group, or go to my website, Hightower-Team.Com are looking for a fixer. If you are not handy, if you have not done some of these repairs before, you could be setting yourself up for failure. If you are buying a fixer you need to know what the fixes are going to cost you. You should have a very good idea of your budget. I have done this a lot and can walk through a house and have my budget set by the time I get to the back door, but I do this a lot. Be honest with yourself, will I fix these issues or not, is there money in my budget to get these repairs done? Usually these fixes are done out of pocket. I do know of some loan programs where we can finance in the repairs, interested? Robert@Hightower-Team.Com One of the things I see most often is homeowners not fixing up their homes until it’s time for them to sell.

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