We’ve viewed probably around 30 houses in our house buying time, not many compared to some and most of those we’re when we we’re purchasing our first house! We didn’t know what we wanted and hadn’t focused our search on a specific area. It was just what was coming up in our price range. I learnt after that to be much pickier at the houses we viewed.
I have seen some houses I tell you, not even ones that were empty and run down. It was the ones that people were living in, I thought I was bad at housework!!! I quite like viewing empty houses that need some love as you can usually see the bare bones of them and what you’re facing if you were to take it on.
I mean look at my kitchen when we purchased this one!
Heading out to view houses is very exciting but you don’t want it to cloud your judgment on the house. You’re about to spend 100,000’s of pounds with them and once you’ve purchased it, it’s yours to look after and all its faults. So I wanted to give you a few things to look out for when viewing a house.
Things To Look For When Viewing A House
Check The Main Fuse and Gas Meters
Check these all look safe and not damaged at all. Is the fuse box a new version or an old one that might need to be replaced.
Switch On Lights
Check the light switches work, imagine buying the house and then realising you have no electrics working!
Crack and Mould
Look out for cracks and mould, these could potentially big an expensive issue for you to deal with. Mould could indicate there is a damp issue and you then have the expense of a damp proofing specialist to correct this and then all the decoration repair afterwards too.
Things Placed In Weird Places
Lift things up and move things around if you think they don’t look right. Or even if they do. It’s easy to place items in the way of cracks, mould, stains and rips. You may think that carpet in that room would be good enough with cleanup and not an expense planned, but when you moved in and find it needs replacing,
View Area At Different Times
You should come back and view the house at different times of the day. If the house is near a school see how much school run traffic parks near your house or in the evenings when everyone is home from work.
Parking
See what the parking is like, do you have a driveway that holds enough of your cars. If not where will you park? Is there enough parking and again at different times of the day.
Phone Signal and Internet
What is the phone signal like? Look at your phones and see if you have a signal. Also, find out what the internet supply is like, we have Virgin Media highspeed so wouldn’t like to go back to low speed with all of us in the house using the WiFi!
School Catchment
What is the school catchment for both primary and secondary? Even if you’re not planning on staying there until your child gets to secondary, you never know how life plans out and you may still be there then. Good schools also means the house will hold it’s value too.
Neighbours
Look around the area and see what your neighbour’s properties are like. Have they looked after it? If the house joined onto you isn’t looked after it may affect you too in the long run. When you’re upstairs look out the back window into their property.
Boundaries
Do they know whos boundaries is who? What fences are yours or do you have a wall to look after.
But Most Of All…..
Do you love it and get that feeling about it?
2 out of 3 houses we had that and the 1 we didn’t we only spent 2.5 years in it as it never felt right and never felt like home. Be sensible but go with your gut.
I hope this will help you a little for things to look out for when viewing a house and I hope you find your dream home
22 Comments
Oh these are great tips! Especially the one about looking for things placed in unusual places, I dont think I would have thought about! Fab advice
Thank you very much, amazing what you can hide behind things!
These tips are so handy. I don’t think people really think about this stuff before spending all that money, and it’s so important
So much money isn’t it!
Some super tips Steph – especially things like parking. And actually, seeing it at different times in the day is a good idea – morning, afternoon and evening. x
I can’t believe how different our road is through different times in the day!
Great tips, I learned my lesson the hard way when falling love with athsetics and not looking at the practical things
Oh yes I saw some houses that were lovely, but practically so wrong but they were lovely!!
These are great tips. We have been in our home for 17 years now and I think we only viewed it properly twice!! It’s crazy really considering how much you pay for a house.
Yes it is isn’t it, it’s so much money we spending!
We viewed so many flats when we were on the hunt to buy our own place. School catchment was our biggest priority, followed bei nieghbours and obviously the flat being in good conditionl
Great to have your wants and needs when looking for a house, makes it easier to tick off the ones that aren’t suitable
I did all those things above when we purchased our first home, which is were we are still living. We viewed some interesting houses before finding our home. Some of them were shocking!
Amazing what houses you come across isn’t it!!
I definitely wish we’d looked better at the house we bought. It’s important to go back a few times to see it at different times of day.
Yes it’s amazing how much changes throughout the day
These are all very important tips indeed. I think it is something that we all need to know about, I was clueless about these sort of things when we were starting out.
Yes I wish I had known more too when we were viewing houses the first time
Some great tips here. I totally agree with the point about viewing the area at different times because a road can be very different depending on what time of day it is. It needs to feel good all of the time.
It’s amazing how different the roads can be at different times
Oh yes I remember looks for most of these when we were buying a houses. Until you buy a house you dont really realise.
So many things to remember isn’t there when looking too, got to remember to keep it fun though!