Now is a good time to buy, especially if you’re buying a first home. Interest rates are down and so are house prices. Before you do, look over your list of requirements.
Husbands often tend to want a double garage and perhaps room for a workshop. If it’s a house that’s been built a few years, the husband will look at the condition of walls, ceilings and whether there are any water marks, guttering, drainage etc. Always go and look at the house again when it is raining. This will show up any faults or areas where the water tends to lie.
Husbands often have definite ideas about the size of the yard, especially if they’re planning a vegetable garden as Mick was. Of course, sometimes it’s the woman who is the keen gardener. Given economic times a veggie garden makes sense if either of you are garden inclined
Women are more likely to look at the kitchen, especially bench space for preparing meals and cupboards, size of bedrooms and living areas and how furniture will fit into the house. This is important if this is your second or third house and you need to accommodate large items of furniture you already own.
Another consideration is the proximity to shops, schools and other services as well as public transport. You don’t want to be always reliant on the car.
Real estate agents caution against buying first and then trying to sell, for good reason. I glance over the real estate in our local area, not because we want to move but just to see what’s happening in the area. So often, we see people commit to buying a house before they have sold. Then the pressure is on to sell.
If it doesn’t happen, they may end up forced to take out a bridging loan or second mortgage. Neither of which is a good option. Invariably the price of the house being sold is reduced. You’re doing yourself out of thousands if you follow this route.
Patience is what’s needed, as we found out when waiting for us our house to sell. Yes we lost a house we wanted to buy in the process and we were tempted to throw caution to the wind and commit to a new house before we’d sold. Common sense prevailed. In the end we got more for our house as well as a house we love. Now when we compare it to the first one, we realize we certainly didn’t lose out by waiting.
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