We covered a little bit of what we do a few weeks ago, and you may remember that we’ve expanded to real estate, too! Today we are continuing our new series on viewing and buying a home where we’ll be sharing a few snippets to help! We want to share our experience and knowledge from handling home renovations as designers, and as a licensed Real Estate agent with Benchmark realty here in Nashville. If you’re moving to Nashville, or in and around Nashville/Franklin reach out to Jamin (jamin @ thehandmadehome.net), we’re happy to help you find that perfect home!
The home-buying process is a wonderful experience if you have the right knowledge and game plan. So whether you’re buying something now or in the future {or just want to look extra smart at that next friend gathering} follow along as we cover some things you’ll want to know! And of course, if you have a burning question you’d like answered, shoot it our way and we’ll do our best to help. We’d love to hear from you. Let’s dive in!
Here are a few topics we’ve dealt with and are coming up:
- The Sight Test (click here)
- The Feel Test (click here)
- Is it the right time to buy?
- Adding Value
- Pre-inspection before offering {part one this week!}
You may notice that our list is a little different this week. That’s because we decided this one’s an important topic to discuss in the order of things. So stay with us as we veer off the main course to cover this one, too!
Pre-inspection before offering
I have to admit this is my favorite part of helping clients find good homes. It’s also honestly one that most agents and home buyers don’t engage in simply because they operate with the belief that it is the home inspector’s job to do this for you. While there is some truth in that, and value in a professional home inspector, why would you as a buyer not want to do your due diligence before you offer?
Knowing the state of the home can help you make a more educated and stronger offer to the seller. It can also keep you from making an offer only to wait 7-10 days for the home inspection report to come back to find out things about the home that make you pull the offer. Thus losing 7-10 days of time in your process. Or at the very least, if you know there are issues up front and can cite them in your offer, you can even make a stronger offer with reason.
“But I’m not educated…”
If you don’t have a great deal of experience in home building or renovations, you may not feel equipped to “inspect” a house. That might be the absolute truth. Let me let you in on a secret though: most home inspectors aren’t master builders either. They’ve been trained to follow a checklist, to look at very specific things, and to document them in a way that highlights their findings for you to understand. That’s no knock against them, it’s what you’ve hired them to do: inspect the basics of the home, and detail them. To crawl into or on top of places you might not want to. Or to provide knowledge where you might not have it. They do this every day, so they know what to look for and most are good at finding those major things.
But what if you knew some basic things to look for, and had your own checklist? Most real estate agents aren’t and shouldn’t provide you with this, because they don’t have that kind of knowledge or experience, and the lawyers would be really unhappy if they did, thus the home inspector’s role.
8 things to look for in a potential home (4 today + 4 in our next post)
Today, we want to give you a checklist and tell you what to look for, because on your home-buying journey, every day is precious and there’s no reason to wait 7-10 days to find out something from someone else that you could have known with a little knowledge. You don’t have to be an expert, you just need a checklist:
• The water heater – Let’s start with an easy one, the water heater. Its age, function, and power source.
Age: On the home disclosure form, there is a space to indicate the age of the water heater. However, most sellers and agents will leave this blank and say they don’t know. This could be true because of their ignorance or they could just be playing coy because they know it is on its last leg. So is there a way to know? The good news is that if you can see the water heater, it will take you about another 10 seconds and a little math to know the water heater’s age.
Water heaters have this nice little sticker on them that tell you all types of things. I circled the age of this water heater, which is from a home I showed a client where the seller and agent said they didn’t know the age of the water heater. With a little simple math, we know the water heater is 6 years old or about 2/3 through its expected life span. (Bonus knowledge: the average water heater last 10 years.)
Function: But what else does the sticker tell us that’s useful? Right below the circle, you can see the gallons: 40. But what does that mean? Typically, one average-length shower takes about 10 gallons of water. So if you don’t have any shower singers in your family {or teenagers} that is enough for 4 consecutive showers.
Power Source: Down one row and to the left, we learn that it is a gas heater. This is good to know if you ever want to add other gas appliances, because the house already has a line run.
Other info: Continuing to the left and up, we can see the model number where you can see information and reviews on the heater.
• The HVAC
The HVAC of the home is an essential and potentially costly system. So the more you know about it, the better off you are. Thankfully much like the water heater, the HVAC has a little sticker on it too.
Age: As you can see from the red circle, we can tell the age of the unit with more simple math. This is from the same house where the agent and the seller claimed not to know the age of the unit. However, we know that this unit being 15 years old is at the end of its life expectancy and the agent and seller were probably hoping to get an offer without anyone noticing this until the inspection.
This is a great example of knowing something before you make an offer that will allow you to make a stronger offer with information to back up that offer.
Other info: Down and to the left of the circle, you can see the model number and serial number, which will allow you to know more about the unit that will help you evaluate the unit itself.
I always take photos of these stickers and would suggest you do the same for any house you are truly interested in so that when you sit down to make an offer you can research the units quickly.
• The electrical panel
As we dive into this, let me be very clear. There is never a need for you to touch or examine in detail electrical circuitry in a home. Leave that to a professional. You are simply an observer of what is presented at face value. No tools, and no touching required.
If you remember back to the previous post in this series, we talked about adding value to the home. Whether you are doing this or not knowing how full the electrical panel of the home is, will be beneficial.
Availability: If you open the electrical panel in the home it looks similar to the above. The question here is how full is the panel and whether is there any place left to add a circuit or two for renovations and additions. This is easy to tell. If you look at the two red stars, you see that there are two punch-out metal plates. This indicates that there are two more spaces for breakers to be placed to serve a new circuit. You can also see the number 19 to the left and 20 to the right, which also confirms the two open spaces.
What that means: Now two is not a lot, but it is more than none, and probably enough to serve a sunroom or sitting room. The more spaces you have the better, as it means more available circuits can be placed. If you don’t have any circuits available, that means you will need to add a new panel, which is pricey. You may even have to upgrade the outside panel, which is also pricey. {Been there, done that.}
So if you are buying a house because you have a vision for what it might become, then this is good info to know, because if you add on to the home you will need to add an inside subpanel and possibly an outside panel which will cost more money.
All about Breakers: The little black switches in the panel are called breakers, and it is good to know that not all breakers are created equal. There are four common breaker types I think you should know about and be aware of: the Standard, the GFCI, the ARC fault, and the Dual Function.
The standard: is just as its name implies, nothing special, just simply standard. It’ll get the job done, but has very little safety and is only accepted by current codes in certain rooms of the home.
The GFCI: or the Ground Fault Circuit interrupter breaker is meant to address some safety issues of the standard. It is a breaker that in the simplest terms if a person’s body starts to receive a shock, the GFCI senses this and cuts off the power before he/she can get injured. GFCIs are generally installed where electrical circuits may accidentally come into contact with water.
The AFCI: or Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter breaker’s function is to protect the branch circuit wiring from dangerous arcing faults that could initiate an electrical fire. These have become required by codes in many places in the home, especially bedrooms. There are a lot of reasons to have these installed, which we won’t dive into today, just know that some agencies estimate that over 50,000 fires per year are the result of an arc in a circuit.
The Dual Function: breaker is the Crème de la crème of breakers, it combines the GFCI and the AFCI functions into one breaker.
So why is this important? Well the first reason, is if they say they have done a renovation to a bathroom or a kitchen within the last few years and you see a standard breaker serving that area, then guess what? They most likely didn’t pull a permit or have a qualified electrician do the work. A seller is supposed to disclose to you if they made any repairs or additions without a permit. So that lack of disclosure is something I like to call a bargaining chip.
The second reason, it can give you more power to ask them to bring the breakers up to the current code, where applicable. For instance, the current code requires all bedrooms, family rooms, dining rooms, living rooms, sunrooms, kitchens, dens, hallways, laundry rooms, and more to have AFCI breakers. Those are $50+/breaker, if there are 14 of them, you could ask for $1,000 in escrow to replace them, (parts and labor). Sure the inspector might catch this, or he might not. But it is easier to include it in the initial offer than to ask for it after they accepted the offer.
In the end, you don’t have to know a lot about electricity, just a little and it might save you a lot. And for a cheat sheet on knowing which breaker does what here’s an easy way to remember:
Standard – No button
GFCI – Yellow button
AFCI – White button
Duel Function – Purple button
• The Roof
This one is a lot harder to determine. Unless the seller is the one who added a new roof, or the seller knows when the previous owner added the roof, then it is just a guessing game.
So what should you look for? Signs of deterioration over age. Just to be clear, we’re not advocating climbing on the roof. Everything below can be done from the ground.
First, look for discoloration or dark streaks on the roof. This will indicate that a roof that has seen some things. Most likely it’s an algae that is growing and will weaken the shingles themselves. The algae feeds on the limestone in the asphalt shingles and deteriorates them.
Next, look at the flashing on the roof. These are the metal parts that touch the brick/siding and help seal it from water. If they look damaged or rusted this will indicate an older roof.
Thirdly, look at the actual shingles themselves. Do they curl up? Are there any missing? Do the grains on them look different in different areas of the roof? Does the roof dip anywhere or sag? All these things can tell you the roof has weathered a few storms and might need addressing.
Again, these are things that you can use as a bargaining chip on the front end of negotiations with the seller.
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As you can see, none of the above is rocket science, you just need a little information and a checklist and you could potentially save yourself thousands, and some heartache.
And this isn’t all you should know. Next, we’re going to dive into more pre-inspection topics like the crawl space/foundation and all things water. We have so much more great information coming your way and be sure to check out all the previous posts.
Don’t forget if you have any questions, drop us a comment below. Or if you want to keep it private, shoot us an email! If you want to search homes in Nashville with a fun tool click here. And if we can help you renovate a home, we’d be honored to work with you.
Have an inspired day!
Bets says
Super helpful tips, Thank you!!!!!
Carrie p says
Thanks so much. Such easy, helpful steps to take to have a little knowledge about the home to be