Buying a Property? 5 Red Flags You Should Not Ignore

by Emma L. Business consultant

No matter how much money you may have, buying a home is never an insignificant investment. It usually requires you to apply for a bank loan, sell a property of your own, save money for a prolonged period of time or get an inheritance. In either of these situations, you didn’t get your funds easy and you need to be smart when investing them. In order to be extra careful, here are top five red flags you need to look out for before you decide to make a purchase.

Pest Issue

When the home seller decides to put their place out there on the market, it shouldn’t take them more than a day to tidy the place up. What they can’t deal with in one day is the problem of pest infestation. This is why you need to make this a paramount on the things you are looking for when you first come into a property on sale. First, however, you need to know where to look for them. A kitchen sink, a garbage can and old wooden elements are the most likely pest hotspots in your home, but leaky pipes are also a hazard. It is also important to learn and differentiate the bugs that come from the outside and those that reside in your home.

Building Integrity

Almost everyone buying a new home looks around for any signs of cracks. Still, while a lot of buyers only look for cracks in the paint, it is of far greater significance to look for them in the foundations or ceilings in your home. No matter how solid your home may look, a closer inspection may discover some structural weaknesses that may pose a hazard for its inhabitants. These kinds of problems are extremely expensive to fix, which is why you need to spot them in time so you can avoid them. For this reason, it might be smart to hire a professional to deal with building inspections, before you decide to buy.

Electrical System and Pipes

This also may be a bit trickier to do on your own. After all, it takes an electrician and a plumber to check out these two issues. Still, there are few tests you can do on your own, like flicking the lights on and off several times or turning an appliance or two on. For more complex electrical safety checkups, make sure you consult professionals. According to a skilled electrician on the Northern Beaches, old wiring poses a major safety threat. As for the pipes, even a layman can spot a leak or mold, and in these situations, it might be for the best to simply pass on this offer.

1600×1202 jpeg
111.9 kB

1600×1202

Incredibly Low Price

If the price for a certain property seems too good to be true, it might be because it is. There are a lot of houses out there offered for half of their full value. Sure, you might want to believe that it is your lucky day or that the owner has got the price assessment all wrong, but in most cases this won’t be so. There are few possible scenarios for this incredibly low price. The first one is that a home-owner is in a rush to sell the property for an emergency (like paying for medical bills or covering a growing debt). The second one may be because there is something about the property you don’t know. Maybe it has a major flaw, maybe its maintenance is ridiculously high or maybe the neighborhood has changed.

Neighborhood Issues

Speaking of the neighborhood, this is one thing you simply cannot do anything about. Sure, you can repaint the walls, fix the installations and the pipes and even find a way to run a household in a more frugal manner. What you can’t do is make a prestigious school move in two blocks from your home, close the steel mill three streets down or influence the safety of your neighborhood. Many homes for sale in Brisbane for example need to have protection against floods. This is something to look out for. All of these things are something that you need to look out for prior to making a purchase. If you make a mistake of buying a home with similar problems, all you can try to do is sell it to someone else, but the price you get for it won’t be favorable.

Conclusion:

Sure, even with the most careful inspection, you might miss out on thing or two. These are usually things like a small stain on the carpet or a nail hole in a bad spot, but these are all things that can get fixed in several minutes. What matters the most is that you know how to spot all these deal breakers and stay away from the homes you find them in.