Advice on what to look out for as a first time buyer

One More Toy

Hello

The missus and I will be buying a house in the Midlands in 12 months time. It'll be our first house and we're pretty clueless what to look out for.

All I'm concerned about is the BER rating and fibre broadband

Do any of you seasoned buyers have any advice/things you would have done differently?

TIA
Omt

drunkmonkey

Can you walk home from the pub/park/shop? I know plenty of people who've sold up and moved closer or into town, it's a pain in the ass being remote if you've kids.
Doing it again I'd probably build rather than remodel someone else's dream to you liking.

Atlantic Dawn

See what wired broadband options there are, also what level of phone signal is there, these things can make your life hell if not available.

One More Toy

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

See what wired broadband options there are, also what level of phone signal is there, these things can make your life hell if not available.

Yeah there's fibre to the house, looks like I'll be working from home for the foreseeable future

waxmelts2000

Is the house detached, or semi? If semi what rooms are next to each other? Best layout is stairs side by side , in my opinion
Do you know who the neighbours are?
Have you parking?
Have you shared gardens in front of the houses
If you have a garden will it have sunshine in the evening
Is there option for more houses to be built in the area that could cause more traffic through where you will live

Broadband as above but looks like you are sorted

Good Luck with it all!

guyfawkes5

- Check the flood risk for the property, this can be done online manually through government websites.
- Similar to the above, check for if your property falls within an area of high risk of exposure to radon.
- Look up the BER certificate itself to double check both the rating and other basic facts about the house like year of construction, square footage, and so on. You'd be surprised how often details like this are incorrectly laid out by the EA.
- Check on your neighbours as they will be a big factor in your life there, even if your house is fully detached. This can range from looking for clues from their property's appearance (e.g. is it well kept, does it seem like they have kids, etc) to actually knocking on their door for a chat (although bear in mind in the current epidemic some people may be very wary of strangers knocking on their door).
- Check your proximity to amenities that are important to you like supermarkets or pubs or parks, and public transport links for when you're drinking or don't want to go through the bother of parking, etc.
- Look up planned council or governmental development in the area to get an idea if any big changes are going to happen to the area in the near future. You don't have to be exhaustive as planning searches during the buying process will cover a lot of this anyway, but it's useful to know if the council is planning flood defences for the area or if a future public transport reshuffle puts you right beside a major bus artery, etc.
- Look for clues in how a property was maintained - properties will often have a new coat of paint during the viewing, but it's harder to hide things like the boiler being very old, etc.

antoinolachtnai

When you go to a house to view:

Walk into every corner of every room. Take a minute and look carefully at every surface and corner. Think about what you see.

Walk to the very bottom of the back garden and look carefully around. Look at the back of the house. Look at all the pipes and brickwork and the roof. You aren’t an engineer and won’t be able to tell much definitive. But you will learn as you go along.

Think about how the sun falls on the house and garden.

Do the same at the front of the house.

Look at the neighborhood. Ask yourself what kind if place it is. What kind of people live here?

Repeat this 50 times on different viewings and you will then know more than nothing about buying property!

ChewBerecca

Drive by the house a few times, at different times of the day. Not just to get a jist of the neighbourhood but to suss out how the sun hits the house. You don't want to be buying somewhere where all the evening sun is in your front garden unless your front garden is decent sized and private.

If you're buying in an estate, have a walk around, see what others have done to their houses if its an established area. Probably easier to swing planning permission for an extension if most of your neighbours have one

As above, check out every corner. Look out for differences in the plaster which might indicate hiding a crack - it might be completely superficial but it could be something to ask your engineer about.

bobbyy gee

With flooding if near a river make sure it's on higher ground. Make sure it's a short drive to town. What's the schools like. When was it built lots of house in 90s were badly built
An old house will be cold. The closer to Dublin the higher the price. If starting a family don't buy 1 or 2 bedroom
Look for south facing back garden. Make sure it has fiber internet
Make sure it can get phone signal as lots of places have poor mobile phone service

Not an experienced buyer but planning my first buy, and have done much research.


The four main threats are:


-Water
-Wind
-People
-Location


You need a careful balance of all four. Very remote, means no people so no anti-social behavior. Also, no help if something bad happens. Also, in some rural areas, makes you more susceptible to crime.



Too high up means no chance of flooding but higher chance of wind damage. Wind is less of a concern in the midlands, but something to think of.



Location, how far to the nearest village. As much as I like the romance of a remote home, should the car blow up, or get nicked, I don't really fancy a 4 mile hike there and 4 miles back with groceries.

old_house

Also look at things that may become more important in the future. I fully expect all new cars to be electric within the next decade, so a private driveway for charging and ideally a south facing roof for solar panels might be a huge bonus in the not too distant future. Apart from that, being in walking distance from amenities as well as having a bedroom and a bathroom on the ground floor seemed important, just in case stairs will become a problem for us later on.

Geuze

Depending on the age of the property, look up its planning record.

Toast

I noticed a lot of off the beaten track places have private wells, septic tanks and oil heating. I assume these all come with maintenance costs / uncertainity with regards running costs or are they not that bad?