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Your Home Viewing
Checklist
Before you buy a home, you’ll
want to know that the property has been well
maintained so you can avoid hidden problems and
costs down the road.
To find out how well the
previous owners took care of their home, check
out the following at the open house:
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Fire
safety:
There are working smoke
detectors and carbon monoxide
detectors. |
Roofing:
Find out what the roof is made
of (wood, asphalt, tar and
gravel, steel, etc.).
The type
of material used can mean a lot
in the life of a roof. A
ten-year-old steel roof has
about 40 years of life left; an
asphalt roof may be halfway
through its life. |
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Windows:
The windows are well sealed, and
preferably double paned. |
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Foundation:
There are
no cracks in the exterior
foundation. |
Wiring
and plumbing:
Ask whether the home has knob
and tube aluminum wiring.
This
type of wiring can be expensive
to replace, and some insurance
companies won’t insure a home
that has it. Make sure plumbing
is not leaking and that water
pressure is adequate. |
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Exterior:
The
yard(s) is in good condition.
There’s no rotten wood siding,
decaying stucco, or cracked
vinyl. |
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Bathrooms:
The area around the tub or
shower has no signs of water
damage or mould. |
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Appliances:
Major appliances like the fridge
and stove are well maintained
and in good working order. |
Understanding Real
Estate Subject To Clauses
In Canadian real estate
contract negotiation, subject to clauses are a
home buyer’s safety-hatch – a way to escape the
contract if something goes wrong.
Three of the most common
clauses on an offer to purchase are subject to
financing, subject to inspection, and subject to
sale:
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Subject to
financing
clauses don’t offer much room
for negotiation. Buyers can’t
remove this subject clause
during the offer/counteroffer
process, unless perhaps they
have a lot of equity, and don’t
really need a mortgage, or
require a relatively small and
easy-to-get-fast mortgage.
Remember, if the buyer didn’t
need a mortgage, she likely
wouldn’t have made the offer
subject to financing in the
first place. |
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Subject to
inspection
clauses are commonly included in
a buyer’s offer to purchase a
home. Since it should take no
more than two or three days to
arrange an inspection, this is
an easy clause to negotiate. As
with the financing clause,
though, you can try to negotiate
a shorter time period for the
inspection’s completion to speed
things up. |
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Subject to
sale
clauses can be negotiated with
regard to the length of time you
give your buyers to sell their
current home. Any buyer who
already owns a home probably
can’t afford to carry the
expense of two homes at once.
Still, no matter how anxious you
are to move, allow the buyer a
decent amount of time to list
and sell his home. |
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Usually four
to six weeks is considered fair.
Most sellers will include a
“time” clause, so that if
another suitable offer comes
along during that time, the
seller can activate that clause
-- meaning that the buyers with
the accepted offer have a set
amount of time (often 24 to72
hours) to remove the subject to
sale clause or drop out of the
contract and let the competing
offer proceed. |
How to Pay Less Interest
on Your Mortgage
Hate having a big mortgage?
Join the club. Remember that you can save
yourself a lot of money by limiting the amount
you spend on interest.
Use these strategies to
keep your mortgage interest payments low:
- Make as large
a down payment as you
comfortably can. The larger your
down payment, the smaller your
loan (principal), and the less
interest you’ll have to pay.
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- Arrange to
pay back the loan as quickly as
possible. The longer the
amortization period, the life of
the loan, the more interest you
will pay.
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- Commit to
making weekly or biweekly
payments. This will allow you to
pay off the principal more
quickly and therefore pay less
interest on it.
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