Category Archives: Furnance repair

Needed repairs to look out for include HVAC, roofing

Buying your own home, especially your first home, can be overwhelming at best and terrifying at worst. Navigating through loan paperwork, contracts, and figuring out how to interact with real estate agents, loan officers, and sellers can all be exhausting if you are not prepared or do not have any help. There are a lot of articles out there about how to be prepared to buy a house, but this is an article that has a slightly different angle. This is one that warns of possible repairs that might be needed in a home you are considering buying, and they might not be obvious up front. The seller only has to disclose certain things, so knowing the possibilities ahead of time and mitigating certain costly repairs can help you feel confident in your home purchase.

  • First, always request a sewer inspection. This is only as requested in most states, though in this author’s opinion it should be a mandatory inspection. Without knowing it you might inadvertently be purchasing a home with a sewer that is going to back up in a matter of months. Getting this inspection done ahead of time and negotiating any repairs will leave you with a peace of mind.
  • Ask to see all regular maintenance paperwork. This includes appliances such as refrigeratorheating company repairs but also extends to paperwork for regular roofing inspections, HVAC maintenance, any landscaping done on the home, or even the last time the locks were changed on the doors. This can help you determine if there were any gaps in service or any major repairs done recently to help you sleep a little easier.
  • Make sure the roof has been inspected carefully, and recently. If it has not, request that it be done. A leaky roof or a collapsed roof can suddenly really ruin a home owner’s day, and with the amount of rainfall and snowfall we have been getting, roofing repairs are on the rise.
  • Based on the results of above inspections, negotiate any needed repairs. If the HVAC system needs fixing, make sure to find an air conditioning repair company such as D.N.I. Heating to help with those needs, or suggest that the seller hire them themselves. Either way, they need to cover the expense so it either comes out of their pocket or out of the price of the home. The same goes for major roofing and sewer repairs that might be needed.

If you are lucky, you will not have to worry about any of the above problems for a long time. Moving into a home that has been well maintained and that maintenance properly documented can help ease your mind about such a large purchase. Even though it should not matter who the seller is, knowing how they have taken care of the house – or not taken care of it in some instances – can help reassure you about a given purchase. Some home owners are simply more responsible than others, and the type you are dealing with should become fairly obvious in the contracting process.