House Buying Notes

Take note of things you like and dislike about each home. It is also a good idea to make a house comparison chart to jot down information as you go through the house (or immediately after). This should be done for every home you see and attached to the listing sheet.

Sketching the floor plan is also a good idea because it doesn't take long at all for all of those houses you've seen to start running together. You'll quickly forget which house had that beautiful staircase and which house had the second story loft you liked so much. Probably more importantly, though, you may also forget which one had that leaky shower drain in the upstairs bathroom.

Since you really need to see at least a dozen or more homes in order to get a good feel for what you can get for your money, having a system to help you keep everything straight is all the more important. Taking photos is also a good idea to help keep things straight in your head as far as which house had which feature (prior to picture-taking, you'll want to make sure this is OK with the homeowner).

With photos like this attached to your comparison chart, you will easily remember the open floor plan of this home.

If you have found a house (or houses) you like, it's good to go for a walk-through several times and at different times of the day. You may find there are things that are apparent in the morning or at night that weren't when you saw it the first time. For example, the neighbor's dog likes to bark all night, the street is a teen drive-through scene and a hangout in the mornings before school -- anything that you might not necessarily want to live with.

Make sure you see a copy of the neighborhood restrictive covenants and know how much the homeowner association dues are. Also ask about other neighborhood expenses. For example, living in an equestrian neighborhood may be nice, but not if you don't own horses but still have to shell out money for fence and barn repairs.