3 Red Flags To Look For When Buying A New Home

If you’re on the hunt for a new home, it can be both exciting and intimidating to start the whole home-buying process. From finding the right home in the right neighborhood to securing your financing and planning for the logistics of your move, there are a lot of details to iron out in order to ensure that everything goes off just right.

But while you might be anxious to get into your new home, it’s important that you spend the right amount of time looking over the properties you’re considering buying so you don’t wind up with a home that has more problems than you thought you were taking on.

To help ensure that you avoid these types of issues, here are three red flags to look for when buying a new home. 

Issues With The Structure Or Zoning

Although you might be more likely to notice issues with things like the decor or finishes of the homes you’re considering buying, what you should really be concerned with are the biggest picture problems that could be happening with the structure itself or the zoning of the land you’d be buying.

According to Bobby Montagne, a contributor to Forbes.com, if there are structural issues with the foundation of the home, you could wind up spending far more money than you’d like to ensure that the home is safe for you to live in. And as far zoning laws are concerned, this can be a very complex legal process that can take a lot of time and money to sort through before you’d be able to get that home. So if there are signs of any problems in these two areas, consider going with another choice for your home. 

A Neighborhood In Transition

While you can save a lot of money if you’re able to buy a home that’s in an up-and-coming neighborhood that hasn’t quite garnered the attention of the masses yet, you’ll want to be careful about moving into a home that’s in a neighborhood in too much transition with the other homeowners.

Jamie Wiebe, a contributor to Realtor.com, shares that you should do some digging if you see a lot of homes in the area are for sale or vacant. While this could be completely innocuous, it could also be a sign that the values of the homes aren’t what they should be or that there’s something nefarious going on in the area, like rising crime rates. 

Repairs Done By The Previous Homeowner

Before you purchase a new home, it’s important that you get it inspected to ensure that everything is in ship-shape. What you’ll want to look out for when you’re doing your own informal inspection is any work that appears to have been done by the previous owner. Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate shares that while this likely saved the previous homeowner some money, it could cost you if the work wasn’t done right.

If you’re searching for a new home to buy, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you notice if something’s amiss in the properties you’re looking at.