Tips for buying a house (part 1 of 5)
One of the biggest tips for buying a house is do your research. Buying a house is a large investment. Doing your research before you even start looking for a house can save you time and a lot of heart ache down the road. There are many factors that you need to take into consideration when getting ready to buy a house. Knowing those factors and what they mean to you can help prevent you from making a big mistake that will cost you down the road. Here are some examples of things to think of when getting ready to buy, keep in mind, your market or situation always affects things differently so something that is a factor for one family may not be for another. You also want to keep in mind how easy or hard the property will be to sell in the future. For example if you bought a single bedroom home, no family will be willing to buy it, so you have just reduced your potential buyers by removing any family.
Size of the house
Knowing how many bedrooms and bathrooms are currently needed or could possibly be
needed in the future should affect your purchase. Do you need 3,4,5 bedrooms? Generally speaking you want to buy a home with at least 3 bedrooms. This is again due to the ease of selling the home in the future.
2. The same can be said for the number of bathrooms. While a single couple may be fine with just one bathroom, that will get really busy when you have guests let alone kids. If you are planning on having guests over or think that you are wanting to start a family, some extra bathrooms will definitely come in handy. Looking into the future when you sell the home, knowing that 2 or more bathrooms will make your home more appealing to a larger group of buyers.
3. Lets not forget the actual square footage of the home. Depending on your lifestyle, number of occupants or future occupants and several different factors can affect how much square footage you will need or want. Remember that as the house size goes up, so does the cost. While you may want 5,000 square feet of space, for the majority of families it just isn’t practical or affordable. Even if you can afford the mortgage, can you also afford the heating and cooling costs that go along with a house that size? When figuring out what size house you want versus need, you must balance all of those unknown additional costs that go along with owning a house that size. When you think you have found a house that fits your needs, you can always ask the homeowner (and sometimes the electric or gas company) if they are willing to share the expenses that they have incurred while living there. It will give you a ball park of what to expect, but can also change dramatically due to what temperature you have your thermostat set at or how often doors are open etc.