What to look for when buying an older home?
Buying a private house is different from buying an apartment. Buying a private house, you become the owner of not only the living space itself, but also the land on which it is located. Therefore, special attention should be paid to documents for real estate and land in order to be sure of the possibility of a transaction and its legality.
If you cooperate with an agency, the realtor will definitely tell you about all the subtleties, nuances of such an acquisition, the stages of the transaction, and will focus on which documents you need to carefully study. If you decide to buy real estate on your own, be extremely careful when communicating with sellers, viewing a house, reading papers, but it is better to leave the main verification of documents to professionals.
Checking the technical condition of the house
When checking the technical condition of the house and assessing the quality of construction, carefully examine and record the nuances, ask questions, photograph and record all shortcomings and defects. You have to check what causes foundation issues in old homes.
Foundation. Check if there are any leakages, high humidity, musty smell, mold or spots on the walls.
Roof condition. Conclusions about the condition of the roof can be drawn from the attic. If you see traces of smudges, mold or fungus, then the roof is leaking, and repairs will require a significant investment.
Exterior walls. Cracks in the outer walls of a house can indicate serious defects and further consequences, for example, improper shrinkage of the house. Even if there are no obvious cracks, they can hide behind a layer of fresh plaster.
Ceilings and floors. The ceiling of the lower floor will tell you about the quality of the floors. If it bends, it’s bad. In the future, the situation will worsen, and the replacement of floors is troublesome and expensive. The ground floor must have a French drain basement and sump pumps systems. You can check this by taking the construction level with you for inspection.
Ask to turn on electricity, heating, water to make sure the systems are working. If you have examined everything, but there are some doubts, contact the specialists so that they conduct an examination and give an opinion on the condition of the house. If everything is in order, the next step is the documents. If you are looking for basement waterproofing solutions near me in Seattle, Everett, Bellevue, then you should contact our specialists for more information.