What do you wish you had known before you bought your house? (roofing, pool)

[Coldjensens]

I wish I would have known that in three years I would be able to buy four equivalent houses for the cost of our house.

I wish I would have known that technology would render all of the CAT 5 cable obsolete and worthelss before I finsihed installing it.

I wish I would have known that we would not use telephone lines anymore.

I wish I would have known that out basement woudl eventaully leak if we did not put in an outside sump pit and pump.

I wish I would have known that woodpeckers would attack our house and do 1000s of dollars in damage (not sure what i would have done about it though, but at least i could set aside some money for repairs).

I wish I woudl have known that vitiraully everyone who would do work on our house woudl either try to rip us off, or do shoddy work and cover it up.

THat is all I can think of.

[BirdieBelle]

Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81

I had no idea property records could tell you if someone's kids have flowin the coop, or if they disapprove of newlyweds.

If someone bought a house in 1969 and still lived there in 2009, I would feel safe in assuming they are empty-nesters.

No need for eye rolling.

Property records and some Google-fu can tell you ALL kinds of helpful information.

[suzy_q2010]

Originally Posted by Wmsn4Life

If someone bought a house in 1969 and still lived there in 2009, I would feel safe in assuming they are empty-nesters.

No need for eye rolling.

Property records and some Google-fu can tell you ALL kinds of helpful information.

I am an empty nester and so are my friends. We would all make great neighbors!

[Barking Spider]

I've heard from past clients, these reasons...
1. Did not know the neighbors had very noisy parties.
2. Did not know the neighbors had: 1. noisy dogs that were outside dogs, 2. vicious dogs, 3. dogs that used their yard as the toilet.
3.
Did not know the neighbor ran business out of their house.
Just a few that came to mind.

[Ohiogirl81]

Originally Posted by Wmsn4Life

Property records and some Google-fu can tell you ALL kinds of helpful information.

I wonder if the county records could tell me if the snotty newlyweds next door were going to have five snotty, noisy kids?

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81

I wonder if the county records could tell me if the snotty newlyweds next door were going to have five snotty, noisy kids?

THat is a lot of snot. You should find out whether there might be a market for it somewhere.

[missik999]

I wish I would have known that my real estate agent was an idiot before I bought my house.

[Ohiogirl81]

Originally Posted by missik999

I wish I would have known that my real estate agent was an idiot before I bought my house.

My real estate agent was my mother-in-law. She wasn't an idiot, but she was very lazy and not very knowledgeable about her trade.

There's another caveat: Don't let family members be your agent!

[missik999]

Among other things, my real estate agent gave me the wrong utility companies to switch my service to, and I was moving from out of state so I didn't know any better. Imagine my surprise when when the contractor I hired called to tell me that all my utilities had been cut off and there were non-payment stickers on the door. And they wouldn't be able to finish their work because they had no water or electricity.

Another small matter was that the real estate agent told me that the house I was purchasing was in the township I wanted, which was important because of schools, etc. I didn't find out until school registration that the house was in the neighboring district, which I did not want.

[BirdieBelle]

Originally Posted by suzy_q2010

I am an empty nester and so are my friends. We would all make great neighbors!

I didn't say empty-nesters were bad neighbors. These people didn't like it when we would have lots of friends over to watch football, and one guy had a problem with the way my husband mowed our yard. Nitpicky stuff. Turns out he was pissed that his old friend moved away.

I understood, but they made it hard on the "rookies."