Hi, we are going to talk about buying either a town house or semi attached property. It is important of course, that you make anything that you buy subject to a home inspection unless you are yourself, an engineer and can do the work yourself. You need to really find out what it is that you are looking at buying. It is the most important, because you do have a wall you share with a neighbor, to find out what kind of insulation there is between the two homes, so that you know whether or not every conversation you have will be heard or vice versa. The advantage of course, to that common wall is that you only have to heat three other walls and so, there are a lot of advantages, but you do have neighbors and it is important for you to know who the neighbors are and what there lifestyles are like. There is one of two things that you can do. One is you can actually try to make a point to meet the people that live in the joining property or you can just be a little bit more discreet and drive your car around the and park somewhere close to the property and just sit there and watch and see what kind of lifestyle your neighbors have without spying on them. You just want to get an idea of how many people live in the house, what are there comings and goings are, are they noisy, are they quite. Those kinds of things can make the difference between you being comfortable or not.
Of course you want to make sure that all of your systems are in good shape, just like any home, you want to protect your self and make sure that you know what your buying and a home inspection is a very inexpensive investment, it will cost you any way from $300.00 to $400.00 for home inspection, but you should get a written report that is very detailed that tells you exactly what it is that your buying. The plumbing system, the electrical systems, the condition of the roof, which is key and you want to make sure that the price that you are paying for the property is a fair market of value.
Sometimes you can get real estate agents to do a comparable market analysis for you that would show you houses that compare well to the subject property you are looking at and what price that was paid. You want to look as far back as no more than a year for example, maybe even six months, depending what kind of market your in and see what the amenities are in those properties and compare the price that your proposing to pay for the subject property.
If you have one bedroom more than one of the other houses that are sold at a particular price, you can add $10,000.00 to the value of the property you are looking at. If you have one less bathroom then another property is sold for a comparable price, then you might want to take ... deduct $10,000.00 that a real state agent knows how to do that, so the good idea is to work with an agent. They are really there to protect you and your rights and you only pay them if you in fact go thru with the sale and they are paid out of a commission, which the salary pace. So, it is a good idea to talk to real estate agents if you do not know a lot about the buying and selling homes yourself and enjoy your home.
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