Source: kali9 / Getty
When you’re ready to buy your first home, the excitement of finally owning a place and “nesting” in a property you can truly call your own can be a bit blinding. Those shopping for a home naturally attend open houses and showings hoping that today will be the day they find one – wishing that this next one is the one. Nobody wants to drag out the process of finding a home. And if you’ve been approved for a loan, that approval only lasts so long, so you may not even be able to afford to drag out the process. T
he clock is ticking, and if you don’t find a place before that loan approval runs out, you miss out on that great rate you got this time around. Furthermore, you may just be fed up with the place where you currently reside, increasing your sense of urgency surrounding finding a home. All of these matters and more can cause us to wear rose-colored glasses when we look at homes. And first-time buyers are most at risk for missing major flaws. Leneiva Head, owner of Welcome Home Realty, went over some red flags for which first-time buyers should keep an eye out.
Source: unknown / na
Beware of flippers
There’s one interesting reason we may be finding a particularly high incidence of issues today. “We’re in a time when there is a lot of flipping going on,” explains Head. “So we have an influx of investors, and they don’t all have the same integrity when renovating properties. They can make it look good on the surface – counters, painting etc. – but if you go deeper, you find problems.”
