You’re with your spouse (or maybe you’re single) walking around an open house showing, and your eyes are gleaming. Looking at the spectacular hardwood floors, the wide-open backyard with fence, and the quartz island in the kitchen, you can almost echo inside your heart the joys of wanting that home. It is the “perfect property.” It’s exactly what you want. You almost have tears in your eyes, for God’s sake! In fact, everyone who’s been in that situation (after looking at several open house showings, of course) has said those famous first-time home buyer words: “It’s perfect!” Right?
Hate to say it, but the “perfect property” is a myth. Those houses don’t exist. Not even the brand-new ones just built the day before.
That’s something you inevitably have to understand and accept when dealing with the real estate market. Every single house–no matter how good-looking, will have some sort of defect that needs to be handled one way or another. Sometimes the “defect” doesn’t even exist inside the structure!
This is the reason for home inspections. The things you see upon the initial open house showing that stole your heart aren’t everything in a house that needs to be checked. A house needs to be checked underneath, on top, inside and out. The roof might be pretty damaged, and you won’t even know it. Moreover, you might notice–especially after a few weeks of staying in your new home–that your neighbors are not so nice! Or as you get to a certain season, your house becomes known to be infested with certain disagreeable insects! There are loads of reasons to come to the conclusion that your house is, in fact, not perfect.
You have to be okay with it. That’s how the real estate market works. Don’t get disappointed. The point is getting a house that can be handled well.