Step 4: Magic Your Castle.

How to Look for a House

Schools, Crime Rate and Shopping

It isn’t only the house that you should consider. If you have children, you should definitely look into what schools are in the area. Test scores are one way to analyze the quality of a school. There is a good website called www.greatschools.com that shows the vital statistics, including test scores, for the school you are researching.   

Regarding crime rates, you have to drive around the area where you are looking for a house. Keep a look out for graffiti, bars on the windows, barbed wire, unfinished construction that appears abandoned, or homeless people or encampments. Further, look at how other people keep up their property. You will have to look at those same houses every day if you move there. Research how close the nearest police station is to the proposed house. If it takes you an hour to drive to the closest police station, that is how long it will take them to get to you! Finally, make sure the house you are interested is close enough to a place where you can buy fresh food. You don’t want to have to drive for an hour just to get milk and bread. 

Inspect Everything, Including the Public Record

Next, do your due diligence on the home you are interested in owning. Check out how long other people have lived in the house. For example, if the last three families have moved out within a few years, that is a red flag. There may be a mean neighbor that no one tells you about until it is too late. There may be a factory that disturbs your sleep.  Hang around the neighborhood for hours at a time before you buy. Go there at night, too. Also check to make sure the house is not in a flight path of an airport, or worse, a heliport. 

Go down to the county records and see how long the people before you lived in the house. Don’t go by what the people who currently own the house or the real estate agent tell you. Land ownership is a matter of public record and the county will let you see the history of ownership on a house. 

Be very careful about strange smells in a house. Be very wary of the use of incense as well. If the current owners are burning incense every time you inspect the house, there is likely a smell that they are trying to hide. This is usually means a mold problem. Mold is very damaging to human health, especially to children, and can be extremely hard to eradicate. Your homeowners insurance will very likely exclude mold problems.

Bring your own inspector to the house. Rely on someone you know very well. Do not rely on an inspector that you are told about through the real estate agent. Bring someone you trust, who has great construction knowledge and check the main systems: the plumbing, electrical, and gas lines. Be on the look out for foundation problems by looking for cracks in the floors and ceilings. Look carefully for signs of water damage anywhere. Look at neighboring houses and see how their water runs off their property, to make certain it does not run off onto yours. Really inspect the house, over a period of times, at all different times. 

Be Careful About Buying Into A Homeowners Association (HOA) Community

It is very exciting to be looking for a new home to buy. There is a matter, however, of which you need to be particularly aware. Some homes are inside a Homeowners Association (HOA). Often, an HOA community may look particularly desirable because the HOA will have professional management running the community’s landscaping, utilities, security, etc. However, the undesirable side to an HOA is that there is a monthly charge for such services, that will increase according to what the Board decides.

The HOA will also hand you a rulebook and tell you to abide by their rules. Even though you have paid good hard cash for your property and are faithfully making the payments, the Homeowners Association has a lot to say about your property and what you can do with it. They can limit the paint choices for the outside of your house. They can tell you what you are allowed to plant in your garden. They can tell you to get rid of your large dog. They can tell you that you cannot run a business from your home. They can tell you that you cannot rent your home. Depending on what the rulebook says, you can be fairly restricted in what you can do in the Homeowners Association, the way your property looks, and what you can inside your own unit.

The HOA Association will charge you dues for things like upkeep of the common areas and insurance. Those fees are enforceable in court. That means the Homeowners Association can trim your trees, hand you a bill, and sue you if you refuse to pay it. The Association will also have to buy liability insurance and you will be responsible for your share of the payments. Further, if something bad happens and the Association gets sued, all of the homeowners in the association can be found liable. If the insurance is insufficient to cover any judgment, everyone in the Association is responsible for the balance. The HOA has to have sufficient insurance and this can raise your monthly fees. Ouch.  

Make deadly sure that you know the cost of the Homeowners Association dues. Find out exactly how often the dues are raised. Inspect the common areas. Are they clean and tidy, indicating that the homeowner’s dues are actually going toward the upkeep? Are the maintenance people friendly? Find out everything possible about the maintenance issue because you are going to be paying dues every month for it. 

Is the manager or management company reasonable and friendly? What is the past behavior of the Board of Directors. Are they reasonable or are they authoritarian and power hungry? Have they been sued? You can look that up as a matter of public records. Look on Yelp and see if there are a lot of complaints about management. It is better to find out before you buy! Read the rules and see if you can handle the restrictions. Do a lot of research and find out the vibe of the place. Do you have or want kids? Is the place friendly to kids? Or are you a single or a senior and prefer not to live around children? Find a living situation that fits with your style. If you don’t mind living around other people and abiding by the rules in the rulebook, then maybe a Homeowners Association is a good choice for you.   

Now Move In and Fix the Place Up!

So, you finally got your own digs! Oh my god, you made it! No one can ever raise the rent on you again! You got a piece of the pie!  Eat that pie! Live there and be happy.  Make your spot as beautiful as possible. Magic your castle. Fix any style problems. If the house has little privacy, do some research into stylish and effective window coverings; look into drapes, shutters, everything. Look at magazines and the internet and learn the style of the house.

Fix the outside of your property. Plant trees for privacy and shade. Plant a garden for beauty and food. Make a play area that is designed for child comfort and safety. The goal is having a happy home life by living in beautiful surroundings for you and your family. How you spend your time on earth is the most valuable thing of all. Make the most of it. Live there and be happy, knowing all the while that you have a long term plan for all of your beautifying efforts. Chart a course for the future. Begin today.

So now you have a piece of property! What is the next money move? Read on to find out!