About

For the average person, buying a home is the big deal, a once or twice in a lifetime event. It should be an exciting and rewarding process.

I volunteered to help my dad choose a home to buy in Spokane, WA in the summer of 2006. The real estate market was still in the "bubble" we were ominously told and we saw to our dismay a market bloated with overpriced undistinguished homes posing as hidden gems. My dad did not want to wait for favorable market conditions. He wanted to move in now, before winter. We were surely about to be victimized by fate.

We had to organize our thoughts. What exactly did he want and what might he settle for. He wanted a modest house in the $200,000 range. The parameters being the home had to have at least a two car garage, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, within reasonable walking distance to shopping, a decent area, and ready to live in with no work needed and no yard fanatics for neighbors. Homes like these are snapped up as soon as they appear on the market. We saw that the bulk of the houses that remain, for longer than two to three weeks, had something obvious that buyers did not like. They became languishing rejects for one reason or another. Usually it was the combination of too many minor faults and high price. If the price is high, it has to be darn near perfect was our way of thinking.

Your real estate agent will feed you ads of houses meeting the parameters you set as soon as it hits the market. Your job then becomes quickly deciphering these ads and acting on them. These pages are tips I learned, basic things to look for in a house, that may be helpful to other first time home buyers.