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Buying my first house **update** offer accepted, I got a house.
shardian:
--- Quote from: lordtodd75 on February 11, 2008, 10:06:56 am ---All good advice, thank you. Like I said I am just making the offer today, should I get an inspection before I make the offer? I checked the house out and I asked a lot of questions. All problems I noticed were cosmetic. The roof, siding, windows are all brand new. The only thing I didn't like was that the oil heater looked a bit old. The appliances all seemed good, hell they are even going to leave a lot of the furniture if I want. One thing I did realize was that I don't know why they are so motivated to sell. I know they are moving in with there children, but I am not sure why they want to be out of this house so quickly(end of feb), I suppose that is something I should check out. I will definitely get a full inspection and termite inspection, I am just not sure in what phase of the deal this should happen.
--- End quote ---
This is why you go thru a realtor - it is their business to know all of the nuances of contracts, inspections, timings, offers, etc. When you make an offer - which is a contract - you have to specify specifically that the whole agreement is based on satisfactory results of any and all inspections within xx days. So yes, inspections come after an agreement has been made. Inspections can be costly, so you don't do them unless you have a signed contract. If an inspection turns up something substantial, you either renegotiate the contract, or walk away from the deal.
For example, our inspection showed up some nitpicky things, but also showed that only half the roof had been replaced - the convenient visible side. It was done 6 years before, and probably due to some immediate need, but the seller specified the roof was replaced a few years ago - a not entirely true statement. At that point, either the seller fixed the roof, lowered the price, or they say no and I walk away. I wanted to take the money and do it myself. The realtor advised me it would be better to have them fix the roof, because who knows what other issues could possibly be uncovered in the process. Better for them to be liable than me after the fact.
Jdurg:
First off, congratulations! I bought my first house late last year and know ALL of the range of emotions you are going through. The house is now starting to finally feel like my home, but there are a lot of things I still want to do with it. (I bought in September and winter quickly moved in so I haven't had a chance to clean up the exterior like i wanted to. Hopefully spring comes soon).
Anyway, once you make the offer on the house that is when the inspection will take place. Make CERTAIN that your offer is dependent upon satisfactory completion of the inspection. I.E. make it so that if the inspection turns up a lot of things that you don't want to deal with that you are able to withdraw your offer because of it. When I bought my house, the inspection showed that the chimney was falling away from the house and that the water pump was corroded and needed replacement. I had an "out" in my agreement if I wanted to, but the sellers were willing to pay for the repairs so I had no problems.
An inspection will also inform you of little things that you will want to pay attention to once you move in. For me, it alerted me to some electrical "fix-ups" that I would need to do and some plumbing work. I could have asked the sellers to fix that stuff, but I needed/wanted to learn how to do it myself so I didn't make them fix it and have learned a lot by fixing it myself. (I've actually become VERY handy since moving into my house).
Another piece of advice is to have your attorney highlight for you anything on your HUD-1 that you'll need to be aware of when filing taxes next year. My attorney did an INCREDIBLE job of highlighting EVERYTHING on that HUD-1 that I could claim on my taxes. It was a huge help to me as there were items that I didn't realize I could claim, but was actually able to. I got myself a VERY nice refund this year from federal and state and was able to buy myself a laptop and a few power tools that I wanted. ;D
When you have your inspection, it is also a good idea to have a radon test done. This is especially true if you plan on spending a lot of time in your basement as that is where radon tends to collect.
ChadTower:
Yeah, don't scrimp on the attorney. My attorney found in the sales contract that the property tax figures were allocated wrong by the realtor, something about them wanting reimbursement of recently front-paid taxes for a whole year, and yet the taxes are only paid semi-annually. That one catch saved us almost twice what our attorney fee was.
Jdurg:
Here here! My attorney was fantastic and I owe him the world for what he did to help me out. I showed up for the closing and he knew I had never done anything like this before, and he walked me through everything in laymens terms. He even showed me the lawbooks and everything. Not once did I feel as though I was being talked down to. He did a great job of explaining everything, and as a result I got myself a VERY nice tax return this year.
The kicker was when I got the key to my house and when I walked in there was a bottle of champagne and a card from the attorney's office with a little "congratulations" for me. A really nice touch to a great experience.
Still, the notations on a copy of the HUD-1 was the biggest help to me. I recaclulated my taxes based upon what I thought I could claim, and his "notations" gave me an additional $1,000 on my tax refund!
SavannahLion:
--- Quote from: shardian on February 11, 2008, 10:26:26 am ---I wanted to take the money and do it myself. The realtor advised me it would be better to have them fix the roof, because who knows what other issues could possibly be uncovered in the process. Better for them to be liable than me after the fact.
--- End quote ---
On that same note.
Even though you'll want the previous owner to make repairs, there's not much stopping them from low balling the work. To put it another way, there's no incentive in spending the amount of money on materials that will last. They'll buy 15 year roofing instead of 30 year. Or they'll try to use fewer nails or even the wrong type of nails or even screws (Good house inspectors will always catch the screw/nail swap).
Also, my brother recently purchased a home. He had assumed that the shower heads, curtains and a chandelier would be part of the sale since they were all permanently attached. The sale went through, he moved in and the curtains were cheap ---smurfy--- Wal*Mart specials, the chandelier swapped out and the shower heads were missing. If you see a feature you like, specify you want that feature to stay in the house... even if it's actually part of the house.
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