Tips to Ensure Your Real Estate Purchase Matches Your Lifestyle

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Buying Real Estate whether it is a piece of land, a pre-existing home, or a new home being built, this purchase will be the most important purchase of your life. It is vitally important that you research the property fully and do your homework before you purchase. Many people rely on their real estate agent and their home inspector to do this research. Your real estate agent and home inspector are both very good at researching and aiding in the quality of your investment. However, buying a house is also buying a ‘lifestyle’ which a real estate agent and a home inspector cannot answer. Only you the home buyer will understand the lifestyle that you want to undertake.  

Here are some tips that can help you in your purchase and help you make an educated decision.

Google Earth: most people will do a Google Earth search on the property they are planning on purchasing. Take a look at the properties around you purchase. It may sound a little creepy spying on your neighbor’s backyard. But you will appreciate finding out if your neighbor has an illegal junk yard in his backyard and your private well is being contaminated by the run off! You may also want to know if your future neighbor has farm animals in the backyard, dog pens, or other animals that you may not want to hear, smell or wandering into your yard.

City Planning Board: many city planning boards have their own web sites and you can access what the future plans are for the city. Just because you real estate purchase is surrounded by protected forest, it doesn’t mean that the city isn’t planning to build a manufacturing plant a half mile down the road causing a huge increase in traffic and noise. Also is the city planning board open to future possibilities with your property? Would the planning board have an issue if you planned on giving music lessons out of you home if the property is zoned as residential?

School Board: If you can, attend a school committee meeting. Some towns and cities share a public school. How far will your children need to travel to go to school? What is the public perception of the school district? Are there a lot of extra curricula activities? If you have don’t want your children to attend public school, is there a private alternative and what is the cost?

Flood Zone: Disclosure of flood zone must be disclosed before purchase. However, the closeness to a flood zone is not. For instance a home we bought was not in a flood zone, but since it was close (on the edge) to a flood zone some home owner insurance companies wanted to charge us extra. This created extra unbudgeted costs. The flood zone areas can be found on many cities web sites. The same can be stated with other ‘extra’ types of home owners insurance such as hurricane, tornado, etc.

 Services to the house: Make sure that you can get phone, internet and cable to the house if you want to it. Even in the most semi-rural areas cable companies can charge a hefty bill to run cable to the house if it is not pre-existing.

Visit the property at different times, at different times: most people will not disclose to you that the neighbor’s teenage garage band meets on Tuesday and Thursday nights for band rehearsal and that it can be heard throughout the neighborhood. Asking them to keep it down after you move in can create an uncomfortable situation (especially if the drummer and bass play are also neighborhood kids). Visit the neighborhood early on a school day to see how many children are waiting for the school bus. This will give you a good idea how many children live in the neighborhood.

Maintenance: All homes require maintenance; know what your skills are and the time you are willing to spend on home maintenance. If you purchase an older home, it may require more maintenance than a newer home. But that is not always the case. Drywall cracks in new homes just as much as in old homes.

Only you the buyer of a property can answer what the quality of life you desire when you purchase a property. Home inspector and real estate agents will not look at the things that will affect you quality of life in the house; they will only verify the quality of the home. Good agents will get to know you and will try to match you personality and family situation with homes they believe will meet your requirements, but in the end it is you that has bought the property and have to live there.