Questions When Buying A House
Prospective home buyers need to ask certain
questions when buying a house to make sure they
know what they are getting into.
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to make sure they
know what they are getting into. While a seller must
list any defects on the sellers statement, there are
other things about the area, the town, the schools
that you may want to be aware of.
Some of the basic questions to ask when buying a
house is about the associated expenses of the house.
These are things like the property taxes,
electricity costs, heating costs,
sewer and water bill and if there are any
association fees or other fees associated with the
property.
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Different areas have different property tax rates
and moving even just one town over can make a huge
difference to your monthly expenses so you should make
this one of your first questions when buying a house.
I just recently moved from a town where the property
taxes were outrageous - over $800.00 a month! I moved
to a town where the taxes were half that and the
result is that I can get a more expensive house for
the same payment each month and I am much better off
as I am putting the money into my investment instead
of the taxes!
Of course, your heating and electric costs will
differ due to size and age of house, but you want to
make sure those costs are not unusually high as this
could signal that something is wrong. Not to mention
that you need to budget those costs in every month!
The same with the water and sewer (if you are lucky
enough to have town services for those!) - not every
town is alike and some have pretty pricey bills for
those services. An outrageously large water bill can
indicate a leak somewhere in the water supply to the
house.
Another one of the important questions when buying
a house is when the major systems have been updated.
This means the roof, painting the house and the septic
system if it has one. These can be major expenses and
you want to be prepared if you are going to have to
put out the money to have them updated shortly after
you move in.
Of course, if you have or plan to have children
some important questions when buying a house will
center around them. Is there a good school system?
Are there other children in the neighborhhod? Is the
traffic minimal and slow moving? Does the town have
any programs for the kids in the summer? All these
can be important factors for a family to think
about.
When you are home shopping, it is a good idea to
bring along a note book that lists the questions you
want to ask about the house. It is easy to get
excited about a property that looks perfect to you and
forget to ask some important things! When I was
looking I printed off a bunch of sheets with the
questions on them, along with things we wanted in a
house (like a master bath, more closet space etc...)
And kept them in a notebook that I would bring with me
to each house we looked at. Then later on we used it
to compare houses and it helped us to remember which
house had which features.
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