Biggest mistakes home buyers make

10 biggest mistakes to make after buying a home.

People make lots of mistakes when they’re trying to sell their homes, but what about the other side? Do home buyers make mistakes too? Heck yeah! First up, there are plenty of mistakes people make with regards to the house itself, forget about the financing and offers and so on.

The prevailing wisdom is that the buyer has made a decision on the house six seconds after walking through the front door. This comes as no surprise. People make snap decisions about almost everything in life and later they build reasons for why those decisions make sense. That’s insane and you need to fight it. If you walk into a house that blows your mind that’s a beautiful thing but you need to make sure that your mind being blown doesn’t make you over look potential pitfalls. Is the house on a major road with tons of cars driving by and you have a kid or a dog that could easily walk out into that? Is there a sinkhole in the backyard? Is the foundation cracked? Does that area of town feature a high crime rate?

If you ignore a big problem with a house because there’s something so wonderful about it that you just can’t stop yourself from buying you’re looking at a problem in the future. If you’ve fallen in love with the backyard of your potential house but there’s one less bedroom than you need, don’t try to talk yourself into being able to live there. It’s going to be a problem and since houses are meant to be lived in for a long time it’s not like an apartment where you can just jump ship when you’re done with your lease. That’s why you should take some time to be very rational about the house you want to buy. Consider everything. Make lists. It all starts with the house and if that’s not good the rest of it is going to be a disaster. Don’t make major compromises when you’re buying a house because they will almost always come back to bite you in the ass.

Real estate agents are important. Or rather, good real estate agents are important. They work hard for you and find the kinds of homes that you’re looking for. Bad real estate agents just show you anything or use dirty tactics to get you to buy quickly (example: show you a terrible home or series of terrible homes and then show a decent home that looks so much better by example to get you to jump on the decent home). Many buyers don’t treat the real estate agent thing with the seriousness it deserves and they pay for it.

Don’t make insulting offers to the homeowners. If you bid way under the asking price they’re likely to refuse to negotiate with you out of principal. Even if you’re willing to come up to something they’re looking for it’s going to feel like you’re spitting in their face. Also, good real estate agents won’t stick with a client for long if they’re consistently making insultingly low bids. It’s a good sign that you’re not really interested in buying a home.

Neighborhood is important and so is doing your research. Call the police department and ask for crime statistics on the area. Stop by the neighbor’s houses and talk to them. If they’re jerks you might not want to live with them, but more importantly they can share with you their thoughts on where they’ve been living for the past however many years. Some will lie, but that’s not hard to tell. Make sure the stuff you want to do isn’t too far from the house you’re moving into or you might end up mightily annoyed at all the traveling you have to do.

Just because a home has more bedrooms and more bathrooms and bigger closets doesn’t mean it’s right for you. If you don’t need more than three bedrooms and two bathrooms why are you buying a house with more of each? Why are you spending your money there when you could be spending it on a vacation, on improving your home, or on your retirement? This goes hand in hand with being sure not to bankrupt yourself with your home purchase and mortgage. Just because you get approved for a certain mortgage doesn’t mean you can actually afford the monthly payment. The fastest way to lose your house is to run into a little bit of financial trouble and realize that you’ve stretched yourself so thin that you can’t survive for more than a few months because your payments on the house have been draining your bank account.

It seems pretty obvious that you should take home inspections seriously but there are still lots of people that simply ignore them. It’s insane to do so. Seriously, do not skip the home inspection just because it costs money. There’s a whole lot of stuff that you’re not going to find when you look through the house. In fact, you’re only going to see the most obvious flaws. An inspector is a trained professional and they’ll point out everything that needs to be addressed, including often serious issues that will cause you to back out of the sale or renegotiate for the seller to pay. If you’re going to avoid one mistake, make sure it’s this one because the inspection is too important.

Be careful of debt. This is related to other mistakes, but a bit different. Once you’ve made your down payment you have equity in your home and you’ll be offered home equity loans to take advantage. They’ll give you money and you’ll pay it back at a nice fat percentage, but you’ll have the money! That’s a mistake. More debt puts you at greater risk of losing your home if anything goes wrong. Resist the temptation unless it’s an emergency. Also, after you’ve made your offer but have yet to move into your house be sure to avoid making any other big purchases. That can screw up the purchasing process and cause your bid to be rejected.

Tereible homes. Biggest mistakes homebuyers make. 

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