Undertaking a property purchase can be extremely daunting, especially if it is your first time owning a home. While there certainly is a degree of excitement, it is important to remain realistic and grounded, ensuring that the property you choose to make your home is not only worth its asking price but also accurately advertised. Without such scrutiny, buyers can soon find themselves with a number of unexpected issues, tarnishing their homeownership experience.
Such issues can, however, be avoided with a proper home inspection. This requires potential buyers to know exactly what they are looking for, something that can be challenging for first-time buyers. To help, we’re sharing the fundamentals of property inspection, those features and factors that might not show up on an official inspection, such as structural issues.
Dampness
One of the most ubiquitous issues among homes in the UK is dampness. This is largely because of our climate, which is notorious for being wet. For homeowners, this means the potential for walls and rooms to become mouldy, especially when poorly ventilated.
To identify dampness can be tricky, especially if a property has recently (often deliberately) been painted, so buyers must do their best to gauge the long-term environment. This can involve touching walls and uncovering surfaces, such as checking behind furniture and inspecting corners thoroughly. There are also devices that can closely analyse the moisture content of rooms that, while expensive to buy, can often be rented affordably.
Expansion Space
A property is a long-term investment and buyers should gauge not only the living conditions and space available but also the potential for future expansion. Gardens, for example, can offer a great deal of opportunity for renovations and extensions, as well as other bespoke options such as conservatories and log cabins.
Understanding the potential for expansion space is important because knowing the potential development that can occur for a property can help buyers to spot an excellent investment opportunity.
Local Environment
Visiting a property to view it only once or twice doesn’t always offer the best opportunity to see its entire character. Issues that often surprise new homeowners relate to the local environment, such as roads being used as parking during school runs or an outdoor area being susceptible to flooding during rainfall.
To understand a property more fully, it is important that potential buyers inspect it outside of viewings. By endeavouring to visit at different times of day and on different days of the week, buyers will have a much better idea of what living there would be like.
Check The Roof
A roof and attic space are easy to neglect, generally being kept out of sight from a resident’s daily routine. As such, it is easy for issues to gradually develop, such as moisture build-ups and structural decay. While some of this might be caught during a valuation, it is important that residents go out of their way to investigate the quality and integrity of the property’s roof to ensure that there will be no necessary and urgent repairs on the horizon.
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