House Hunting Tips for the New Home Buyer

Buying a home can give you a bigger headache than being forced to watch all three Lord of the Rings movies in a row, but I'll let you in on a very important secret not readily known by all: building a house makes the headache you get from LOTR marathons seem like a stubbed toe. It is often much better to go ahead and buy a pre-existing house than to build from scratch. But before you buy that house, take some of this advice from those who have made the odyssey before you and lived to tell about it.

House Hunting Tip 1
Go shopping. Seriously. Go shopping in the neighborhood in which the house is located. Find out how bad traffic is if all you want to do is get to the grocery store to buy the loaf of bread you forgot to buy. Is there a gas station nearby AND it is easy to get in an out of? Remember that you are not just buying a house; you are buying a neighborhood over which you will have no control. Does the neighborhood have quick access to your doctor, a family emergency center and a hospital? How far away is the closest movie theater? If you aren't with Netflix, how close is the best video rental store? Get to know the neighborhood as well as the house before you plunk down the cabbage.

House Hunting Tip 2
What do you want...really, really want from a house? Consider whether the house you intend to buy comes pre-made with these options or can be added on relatively painlessly later on: Jacuzzi tub, garden shed, separate dressing room in the master bath, breakfast nook, den/study/library/office, garage, guest room, front or back porch, skylight, gas stove, forced air furnace, disability access, nursery, workshop or fence. Building a house has the advantage of allowing you to tailor it to your needs, but if you hire a contractor like Cedric Martin of Louisiana, then your headache will be bigger than adding the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy to your Lord of the Rings marathon view.

House Hunting Tip 3
Turn the TV to Animal Planet and leave it there or just fire up the Roku and watch those pesky Meerkats 24/7 on Netflix. In other words: don't watch shows on TV about house hunting while you are, well, hunting a house. What you see on TV shows on the Home and Garden Channel and all those other networks doesn't apply to your house. See, those shows really are pretty much scripted and do not actually reflect reality as you know it. Quit comparing real houses to those on television and don't compare your hunt for an abode to those hunting for a house on TV.

House Hunting Tip 4
Bring you iPhone or your SmartPhone or your netbook or your laptop or your PDA to every house you visit. Or just bring along a spiral notebook and a camera. (Or a phone that is a camera or a digital music player that is....). Keep a log of the homes that you visit and take pictures to better remind you. Write down the address, neighborhood, how long it took to get from the house to your job (you did run a dress rehearsal to check that, didn't you?), what stores are nearby and how near they are, how far away the house is from your most frequented restaurants, if the house is in the pizza delivery area for your favorite pie and the floor plan. Yes, draw out the floor plan unless the seller or agent can give you an official version.