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Although we’re currently in an apartment now, I’ve mentioned before that we own a house, and trust me, there are plenty of things I wish I knew before we bought our house. It’s a crazy, exciting, and amazing experience, but it can also be very overwhelming if you go into it unprepared.
A little background for anyone curious, we bought a house a little over a year ago. Scott and I had been looking to buy a multi-unit, aka a single property with multiple separate units inside. We found a cute row home that had a basement apartment, and the upstairs part of the house was separate, and the rest is history!
We’re in an apartment now because Scott got a new job, as you may have read in this Life Update post, so we needed to move closer for that. We’re currently renting out both units of our house, so we get a little monthly income from that! If you ever want to hear more deets on that situation, let me know! I’ve thought about having Scott write up a post on here all about it, because he truly is the mastermind behind it, and I’m so thankful for it!
Anyways, back to allllll the mistakes we made! Buying a house is an overwhelming process and there are a few things I wish I knew beforehand, just to maybe have been a little more prepared. I’m sharing them with you in today’s post so you can hopefully learn from our mistakes!
1. It Can Take A While Before You Find Your House
It took us about 6 months before we found the house we ended up buying. We were looking for something a little more rare, so that probably added to it, but I also don’t think our experience was all that unique.
We looked at so many, and there were I think 4 we had our hearts set on. The first one was SO perfect, I’m still a little bitter we missed out. We saw it and immediately put in an offer, but someone put in a better one and that was that. That happened a few more times too. It was a pretty disheartening experience.
Once you find one you really like and are willing to put an offer on, it’s really hard not to get emotionally attached and start mentally unpacking all your belongings and arranging furniture. Then you get the dreaded email you missed out and all those plans suddenly can’t happen anymore. I wish I had known to not get so emotionally attached until the contracts were signed and the deal was done.
2. Do Your Research On Inspectors
Before we signed the papers, we needed to get it inspected. Our house was built in the 1860’s, so obviously there are certain problems you may have when dealing with an old house.
Our inspector was recommended to us by our agent, and we trusted him, so we went with that inspector. He was perfectly nice and seemed to do a really great job. Scott and I don’t know much about houses, so it was easy for us to assume this guy knew what he was talking about.
However, once we moved in, quickly we realized some big ticket items he missed that ended up costing us big bucks. Our heater didn’t work and our dryer didn’t heat up properly. Plus, a few other small things we found as we lived there. The dryer was a pretty quick fix luckily, the heater on the other hand, took a technician coming out I think like 10 times in total to fully fix.
3. When In Doubt, Check Yourself
When we had the inspection, the heater wouldn’t turn on. The inspector said he thought it was because the gas line had been turned off to the house since it was vacant. He made it seem like it was all good to go besides that. So, we had the gas line turned on a few days later. Our agent said he could go out and check, and reported back the heater turned on, and all was good to go. We trusted him, which was our mistake.
Once we moved in, like I said, we had nothing but problems with the heater. We’re not sure if our agent was just lying to us to make the sale, or it really did work when he went to check, but someone never worked for us, we’d never know. We should have gone and checked ourself instead of trusting him to check for us.
Writing this all out, Scott and I sound so naive, but when you’re new to all of this, you trust people who sound like they know what they’re talking about. Clearly, that was a mistake on our part.
4. Things Will Go Wrong
Even if the inspector had caught those things and the heater and dryer worked, other things still went wrong.
We had a problem with our electricity going in and out for a while which we had to get an electrician to come and fix. We had leaks. We had dishwashers stop working. We’ve had to replace a washing machine. The list goes on.
Things absolutely will go wrong, don’t freak out! It can be really overwhelming to deal with these problems when you don’t know much about taking care of a house. Yelp nearby technicians for whatever job you need done, and you’ll be fine! It’s all apart of being a grownup ?
5. There Is So Much To Learn About Caring For A House
This goes along with my point above, but there really is so much to learn. For example, we didn’t know that you need to turn certain pipes off in the winter so they don’t freeze. We had one partially burst because it froze. Luckily the damage was pretty minimal, it could have been REALLY bad. I don’t know if my parents did that, but I had no idea it was something that we had to do!
Maybe ask your parents ahead of time of all the little things they can think of they do to care for their house. Or ask someone you know who recently bought a house, I’m sure they’re in the midst of learning some of these things!
5. Have Reserves For Emergencies
Hopefully I’ve drilled the point home that things will go wrong with your house, and I say this with love so you will be mentally prepared to Yelp it and figure it out! But, be sure to have some money set aside for these things that do happen. It’s a lot less stressful when you have the funds to fix them! New or old house, have money set aside!
6. Drive By The Neighborhood Multiple Times At Different Times of Day
A neighborhood can look completely different at various times during the day, so I highly suggest driving around it a few different times. Definitely do it once at night. See if there are any sketchy people, or poorly lit areas. It doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t get your house, but it’s something to be aware of.
Our neighborhood was pretty safe overall, but about 3 blocks from us was this corner were all the nearby sketchy people hung out. As in one time I walked by them and straight up witnessed a drug deal.
Also, there was a side street Scott would park at often, but then his tires randomly got slashed and his taillights knocked out. Maybe if we had driven by that street at night we would have at least known not to park there!
7. It’s Not Nearly As Scary As I’m Making It Out To Be
I know I’m bringing up all the negatives that happened and we went through, and they’re important to point out so hopefully you can avoid them, but don’t let all of that scare you!
It’s an incredibly amazing experience to be a homeowner. Definitely makes you feel like much more of a grownup lol. But I’m so proud Scott and I were able to do this together, it certainly brought us closer! It’s a big accomplishment for us that we’re very proud of and grateful we were able to do.
I’m here if you have any other questions about being a homeowner! Feel free to email me or leave me a comment below!
