Buying a home is one of the biggest investments you’ll make. For this reason, it’s important to use a checklist when touring potential homes. In this blog post, I cover a home buying checklist for paint and stucco.
Home Buying Checklist – Paint and Stucco
When looking at potential homes, you’ll find that the exterior makes the biggest impression. However, you need to look past the color scheme, as this isn’t the principle issue you should be concerned with. Taking a careful look at the exterior of a prospective home tells you a lot about the quality of the structure.
The seller home isn’t stupid. Before putting a home on the market, they’re going to take steps to make their home stand out to prospective buyers. There’s nothing wrong with that. Naturally, you want to put your best foot forward and the seller wants to do just that. This is why it’s important that you take a close look at the exterior paint and stucco on a home.
1. First, look for is peeling or flaking paint on the exterior walls. If it’s obvious, run for the hills, because the entire house needs to be repainted. Typically, you won’t find such obvious problems. Instead, poke around behind shrubs, under roof overhangs, and in nooks and crannies. If you find problems with peeling and flaking paint, it usually means the paint job was done incorrectly. These types of problems will only get worse over time.
2. Second, look for stains around holes in the paint. For instance, look for an area where bolts or nails enter a painted surface. If there is rust, it could be an indication of poor maintenance. Worse yet, though, it could be an indication of a water drainage problem. Carefully investigate incidents like these.
3. Finally, with stucco homes, it’s not unusual to find some cracking due to earth movement and temperature changes. As long as this cracking is relatively small, you shouldn’t have problems patching them for a minimal price. However, if you find stains or soft spots on the bottom section of a stucco wall, you may have bigger problems. This could be problems with the drainage screen behind the stucco wall and water isn’t getting out. If it isn’t getting out, the stucco will continue to degrade and it could develop into a mold problem down the road. This could lead to expensive repairs.
When touring homes to purchase, look at the exterior carefully. In this case, the details may be minor or they may lower the value of the home because of potential repairs.
If you plan to purchase in the Apollo Beach area, get in touch with me. I’d be happy to show you homes in the area.