Uncover the reasons behind our selective approach to buying a house. Learn from our experiences to make informed decisions.
Steer Clear Of Houses That Look Like This
There are reasons why I won’t buy your house for sale unless it is up for sale at a meager price, and here’s why.
Since spending months looking at open houses only a few years before we bought our current home, Mrs. CBB complained that I was too picky.
I’m pretty sure her views have changed now over the years of learning more about the home-buying process.
Recently, I blogged about how to avoid home-buying mistakes the first time.
However, this post goes a bit deeper into what we saw and what we were looking for in our first home.
At one point, Mrs. CBB thought we would never buy a house, and our real estate agent was probably getting a little annoyed, too.
I can’t even remember the number of houses we visited, but there were quite a few, although I didn’t want to buy a house just because it looked pretty.
If you have a house for sale and are wondering why your house hasn’t sold yet, you might want to look at apparent factors.
Incorrect House Listing Information
If you plan to sell your house privately or with an agent, ensure the listing is accurate.
For example, our purchased house was listed as having street parking only.
However, upon viewing the house with our realtor, we found it accommodated up to four vehicles.
One of the reasons we went to look at this house was because Mrs. CBB questioned the parking availability.
After all, she knew the area where the home was located.
Sure enough, the real estate agent didn’t properly market the house and potentially sent buyers away, listing no parking with street parking only.
The other problem was that the homeowner didn’t read the Realtor listing online to realize the error in alerting their real estate agent.
We learned that if it sounds odd, don’t hesitate to ask your real estate agent a question or do a quick drive-by and check yourself.
Buying Your House For Sale
I don’t think we are much different from other house hunters, but I didn’t exclusively listen to my real estate agent because the final decision was up to both of us.
If you attend an open house, you will hear agents say how perfect the property is and exclude or sugarcoat the problems.
Not every agent is like that, but let’s be honest: An agent’s salary is just as important as your own.
How many people market products with defects unless they are mandated by law?
If you buy an apple and don’t like it, you can’t return it after you’ve taken a bite.
Ensure you have a solid relationship built on trust and friendship with your real estate agent.
We visited houses, new and old, two-story, and bungalows because we didn’t have a particular style that we were leaning toward.
Poor Renovations In The Home
It wasn’t the decorating style that turned me off of a particular house for sale but a combination of stupidity, over-the-top pricing, and poor execution of renovations.
As a handy guy, I can look past the painting and decorating in nearly every open house we visited for sale.
Although they say presentation can be the winning key to selling a property, presentation alone will not convince me that it’s a great house to buy.
General condition was a key factor because if a homeowner didn’t love the house, they poured their hard-earned money into it, so why should I?
You don’t just buy it and forget it.
Did someone take care of the house they called home, or did they just let it go?
If I buy your house for sale, I want to see evidence that your home was maintained or installed correctly.
When you upgrade the carpeted floors to hardwood, I want to see seamless joints and edges to the baseboard.
The fact of the matter was we saw some of the most poorly executed hardwood flooring installations ever.
Looking at massive gaps at the edges or between planks made me question everything else in the house.
How did the seller think that was an excellent job, and did they expect potential buyers not to notice?
In one house, the seller cut out an entire wall and forgot to drywall the newly created edges.
Did they support the cut-out correctly?
You can’t just cut out holes in walls and ceilings without considering the home’s structure.
Strangely enough, that wasn’t my biggest concern about that particular house.
It was the fact that if they didn’t have the knowledge or skills to finish up the renovation job, they started.
Bedroom Size And Availability
Bedroom size was an important factor for me in every house for sale that we looked at.
Having previously lived in a tiny UK house, I didn’t want to recreate the same issues I’d experienced before.
Although I said, I could if I had to live in a micro-apartment or small house.
However, if I don’t have to by choice, I’d rather not buy a house that was too small for us.
Having noticed that some houses have a tremendously large main bedroom, you have a look at the remaining bedrooms, which can be quite small.
We searched for a house that kept the other bedrooms reasonably large.
If we ever have guests or children, they would have a spacious bedroom.
That was by choice.
Garage Size
I’d never owned a house with a garage before, so having the opportunity to buy a house with a garage was new to me.
The garage space and amount of parking were issues at just about every house we visited.
We had seen houses with single and double garages, which seemed straightforward; you could park one or two vehicles.
Having viewed several houses with a garage and a half, it seemed like a waste of money and space.
One was like a garage and a quarter, leaving enough room to put a large waste bin in the one remaining corner by the garage door and the car.
Call me strange, but where is the rest if I pay for a garage and a half?
Problems Down Below
Basement renovations seem to be the home’s most common living space addition and can add a fantastic area to any home.
That is except for some of the ones we visited.
One basement had two nasty issues glaringly obvious as soon as you walked down the stairs.
Having the basement listed with a bathroom rough-in, you’d expect that to be a simple install of sink, toilet, and shower.
Not in this house, the builder had decided that the toilet waste pipe should be installed at the bottom of the stairs.
Why the original homeowner didn’t complain or get it moved is beyond me.
It was too late, though, because the basement had been “Professionally Finished,” which was odd, considering the entire basement, lights, and sockets included, ran off of one light switch.
Something tells me that’s not professional.
The basement laundry room in one house for sale made me laugh when the floor drain was higher than the floor level because of an installation blip.
I’m guessing it was to allow a certain amount of flooding but not enough to destroy everything.
That was the same house with live electrical hanging from the basement ceiling.
Another basement you’re paying for twice over, once for the house purchase and then again for getting it all ripped out and re-done.
Unfinished Basements
If you plan on buying a house with an unfinished basement, try envisioning a finished basement and how the space would work.
- Does the furnace need to be moved?
- Where is the bathroom rough-in?
- Is it possible to install the laundry near the roughed-in plumbing?
These questions may seem slightly weird, but you’d be surprised what some builders get away with.
For example, we viewed a home where the furnace and hot water heater were too close to the stairs.
Whoever purchased the home would need to move both six feet around the corner to make a wide enough walkway from the stairs to the main living area.
Again, you’re paying for a job to be done twice.
Other House Disasters We Encountered
Other notable things were wrong with other houses listed as popular features, yet they were a complete disaster.
The deck on one bungalow that had warped and had been forced upward by the frost was left with an almost eight-inch drop toward the house.
It was just another example of something included in a house sale’s price, yet another cost passed on to the potential buyer.
Sure, the home inspector might catch this, and you can negotiate the price, but do you want to invest your money in a home that was not maintained?
That’s only a question you can answer and whether you are willing to soak up any surprising costs that could pop up that you can’t see.
It’s probably another reason I’ll aim to hire tradespeople to do specific home inspections if we ever repurchase a house for sale.
Choose Your New House Carefully
Don’t get me wrong; I think everyone should be a house snob.
A house purchase is the biggest investment most Canadians will make in their lives.
I just wanted to ensure our money was being put into a house that we didn’t have to tear apart what we just paid for.
Plenty of well-kept houses were for sale, but they weren’t right for us due to location, size, or other priorities not being met.
We’ve had some unforeseen problems in our house, but you can’t see everything that will happen.
However, if you can see existing problems that haven’t deterred you from buying the house, you may want to consider what you can’t see.
Oddly enough, we bought the home that the real estate agent had not adequately marketed.
Spend time looking past the fluff and investing it into your future house.
You’ll be left with the bill for fixing everything if something goes wrong that you could have easily prevented.
Discussion: What are some of the worst things you’ve seen when searching for a new house?
Please leave your comments below.
Thanks for reading,
Mr. CBB
Related articles
- Budgeting With Mr.CBB Got Us Back On Track!
- Should you buy or sell first?
- Becoming A Single Homeowner – Part 3 “Mortgage Options”
- Bank Sales In Canada Not The Same As Bank Foreclosures In The USA
- Best Home Renovations, Money Wasted or Money Invested?
- How To Maximize Your Mortgage
- Our Canadian Home Tips For Saving For A Downpayment
I hear you loud and clear on issues with looking at houses to buy. We were limited to what we could afford when we bought this house to mostly fixer-uppers. I will say our agent was good, he could and did point out things that were not great and explain how it could be fixed. I would have no problem using him again, we found him to be well informed and honest.
We saw some ‘interesting’ basement reno jobs in the process… We saw wires hanging from the ceiling, more than once!! One place had a kids playroom down there…all I could think of looking at it was ‘Bring in the dumpster…..’
Then there was this place… we got it on a power of sale, meaning the previous owners lost the house to the bank for non-payment. Heard tell from a neighbor this wasn’t the first time either. Clearly they didn’t give a crap. We knew the house needed all new wiring. One of the first things we did was to up-grade the service from 60amp fuses to 200amp breakers. this was inspected as the work was hired out. While the inspector was here we gave him a tour. His only comment was that he was glad we were re-doing it all. The light in the attic was one of those big floreseant shop lights, wired in with an old extension cord with it’s ends cut off to wire it in. No joke. The wire was just swinging in the breeze. Ever plug outlet was broken/cracked in some way…Every…Single…One…. We also had the neighbor ask us how we liked the wood stove in the house the first winter we were here. What wood stove?????? The previous owners had taken it with them when they moved out!!!! So much for the rule that if something is physically attached to the dwelling it stays there when you sell.
That was not the funniest part…. The mother of our daughter’s best friend was a hair dresser and had a small salon in her house. She cut my hair one day and we were having a lovely chat. About our house. She and her hubby owned a 4-plex and lived in one unit, renting out the other 3. The couple that had owned our place had looked at one of the units thinking to rent from my friend. The woman was bragging about her son who was quite the artiste to hear Mom tell it. OK, we had found a drawing of the Calgary Flames team logo on a wall upstairs but it gets better. Seems this son had his bedroom in the basement. He had drawn a life size drawing of a goalie in the net(Flames goalie of course!!) right on the wall!! I was asked if it was still there. I didn’t remember seeing it but I’d look. I had a look when I got home. Didn’t find the drawing. I did, however, find a spot on the wall where it looked like someone had cut out a piece of drywall…. just a little bigger than a goalie net opening………Yup, they cut out a chunk of wall and took it with them……… I kid you not…they cut out a piece of the drywall so they could take the kids artwork with them!!! We had to laugh, what else can you do???
About 5 years ago, when we were still in our rental property accumulating stage, we viewed a lot of properties. We always started in the basement. If that didn’t pass, we didn’t look at the remainder of the house. For us, that was the most important part. Painting and other cosmetic stuff, is easily remedied.
Great article Mr. CBB! I’ve never tried to look for a house to buy because I’m just a student, but when the time comes that I do, I will definitely look into the bedrooms and bathrooms of that house first. I want to live in a house with a good size master bedroom and adequate number of bathrooms.
You have all the time now to do your research so when the time does come you are making informed decisions. Smart move if you ask me. Cheers Mark.
My son looked at a house that seemed pretty good. It had been on the market for a while at a decent price. Then they saw the basement. The owner had “renovated” it to look like a nice room. Then they noticed one wall was a little odd looking. They tapped it and it was hollow. Turns out the outside stone wall had collapsed & they tried to hide it with a new wall. No wonder the house hadn’t sold!