They are the most practical things you probably don't think about when buying a house. In our case, we also encountered a number of issues in the past year that we had not considered beforehand. Not always a problem, but we were still confronted with a number of things afterwards. I have already written quite a few blogs about everything related to the purchase of a house and now about what you should pay attention to.
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Of course there is a standard list of things you should pay attention to when you buy a house. From taking out the mortgage to, for example, having a building inspection done and the distance to the school. All important and also all obvious. But there are also a number of things you probably don't think about when buying a house. They may seem less important, but can still present a challenge in the future. Hence my list of things that you probably don't think about, but should still pay attention to when buying a house.
For example, if I look at the distance to the school, I don't think that's the only thing you should consider when buying a house. For example, also pay attention to the road that your kids have to travel. Of course you can cycle with them in the first instance, but you don't do that until the end of the day. At some point they have to go to school independently. And then it is important whether the road there is safe. For example, do your children have to cross a major road and is that safe? We now live in the back and the road in front of our house is not very busy, but there is a lot of driving. I think that's quite a thing, but there's nothing we can do about this anymore, except to keep reminding our children that they have to be careful. Furthermore, Lotte still has to cross a busy road to school.
Luc is now going to do a new course - a year later - because he passed. Super nice, of course, such a new era, but we didn't think about the fact that there is no good bus connection at all. We should have kept that in mind when buying our house. I don't think that would have influenced our choice, but it's good to think about it! Luc now wants to get his moped driver's license because he can't go by bus that easily.
After 1 x look you might be super in love with this house. And so you want to see as soon as possible whether you can close the sale and buy a house together. But be careful! When you look a second time, or sometimes even a third time, you see different things. It can even cause the charm of the house to deteriorate because after a few times you look at the house with different eyes. You see the flaws much better and therefore make a better decision. You simply cannot reverse a sale!
Perhaps a somewhat strange comment, but it is one from our own practice. We are still head over heels in love with our new home. Yet there are a number of things that we are less happy with, such as the accessibility of the sides of the house. The point of the roof is so high that it can only be reached with a folding ladder. You would say, no problem. And that is true, but it is still very exciting to see Frank on the ladder like this. When hanging and collecting our Christmas lights, that was a thing. He doesn't feel completely safe himself because you don't have anything to hold on to.
Now the Christmas decorations are your own choice, but we are also still renovating. After the insulation of all the outside walls, I also have to paint the side again. That is not really safe on a ladder, so we will probably have to rent a scaffold for this. Those are costs that you are not always waiting for.
In addition, our house has a number of windows that are actually not easily accessible. How am I going to clean it? Really something you don't pay attention to when buying a house, but which can cause problems once you live there. Do I grab the folding ladder, or am I going to arrange a window cleaner? Given the amount of windows in our house, I am now - forced to consider - the latter option.
You are not there yet with the purchase of a house, because what should you pay attention to when you are talking about the interior? See, my first instinct was that the ceiling and floor have to come out of the house. It's all so 70s, not our taste at all. But getting the floor out is quite a project. And I have to say that I'm really looking forward to that. A concrete floor is still my dream floor, but will it ever happen? In view of the expansion that we still want to have done and all the investments involved, we will have to wait a few more years in any case. So now I'm looking into whether we can put a floor over the tiles for the coming years. That only presents challenges with all doors.
We also want to break down a number of walls that, on closer inspection, cannot simply be removed. The construction drawing stated that it was a non-load-bearing wall, but in practice it appears to have been built differently than on the drawing. That means the consequences will be a lot bigger. Would have been handy if we had known that beforehand.
Did you know that you have an obligation to research when you buy a house? When purchasing a house, you must therefore actively pay attention to where possible defects are. Visible defects, for example, do not have to be pointed out by the seller. You are obliged to take a critical look at everything in the house you want to buy. In fact, the obligation to investigate is more important for an older house than for a new house. You can assume that there is a greater chance that something is wrong with the house. After purchase, you do not have to deal with defects that you could have discovered beforehand, they are no longer accepted.
I find this a difficult one myself. The seller's broker is a good acquaintance of ours. He was also our real estate agent for the purchase of our first house together, and the real estate agent for the sale of that house. You tend to think that he wants the best for you. And to some extent it is, of course. But remember that the broker also serves the selling party.
During the viewing, for example, he told us that putting double glazing in a frame was not that expensive. You could have replaced this glass for a hundred euros, he shouted. We did not investigate this further at the time, but in the end we spent € 25,000 on double glazing throughout the house. Yes, we have a lot of windows, and I have to admit that two large bar frames were added, but in the end the double glazing turned out to be a bit more expensive than what we initially calculated. So make sure that when you buy a house you have a clear idea of what the costs will be that you want to have carried out in the basics. This way you know for sure that it will fit your budget.
Perhaps you are already so far in your decision that you want the house. You look at the mortgage and expect that maybe it should work. That monthly amount that you then lose is also just fine. But hey, then you live in that cool house that you fell in love with.
All nice and nice of course, but what you should also pay attention to when buying a house are your monthly charges and the recurring municipal taxes. Fortunately, we have already checked this out in advance, because especially in the case of our house (actually 2 houses next to each other) the monthly costs are quite high!
Anyway, the above is what we learned when buying our house. If you want to know more, the Consumers' Association also has some tips for you. Do you have any specific additions that not everyone thinks about? Let us know and I'll add to the list!
