‘Home sweet Home’ and ‘Home is where the Heart is’ are two common sayings that we are all familiar with.
When we are looking to buy a new house, a place we can call our own, that we can turn into a home, it is a very emotional experience.
We use our gut instinct, most people know very soon after walking in if a house is right for them. ING conducted a survey which showed that it took on average 21 minutes to choose a home. Does that include the hours spent trawling RightMove?! Come on, we all do it!
I know when we moved just over three years ago, I walked into one particular house and I just knew, it felt like home. I couldn’t put my finger on it but I knew I wanted it!
I discovered fairly soon after our offer had been accepted that I was pregnant with our first child so my overwhelming feelings and nesting instincts were not just to do with the nice decor!
We all have the desire to make a house a home, to put our stamp on it. Lets face it our house is the biggest purchase we will make in our lives so it has to be right!
The right location, situation, layout, the list can go on and on!
A house move is a very stressful time, and it can be a fraught time right up until the day we get the keys.
Its lovely and exciting planning your new decor, how your furniture will fit in, or if you are planning to buy something new to go into the new house. But let me ask you if you have stopped and thought about the structure of the house? Whether it has a clean bill of health?
One analogy is to compare a house to a car, a car is probably the second biggest purchase you make, but would you buy a car that didn’t have an MOT?
If a car doesn’t have an MOT how can you be sure it is fit for purpose?
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) states that 1 in 4 buyers rely solely on a mortgage valuation report and 25% of those people end up spending £1,100 on unplanned work in the first year after purchase.
Now some of you will be thinking but 75% of those people who relied upon the mortgage valuation report didn’t spend anything.
True. I cannot argue with the numbers, but who is to say if you will be in the 75% or the 25%, therein lies the risk.
The RICS have a practical guide called choosing between surveys to download, which might be worth a look if you are buying a house right now.
Surveyors are not out to scupper your plans or burst the bubble of buying your dream home, far from it, they just want to make sure your dream home doesn’t turn into a nightmare!
As for me well, I did buy the house I so badly wanted and seven months after moving in we brought home our new baby son, who is now three (can’t quite believe it!) he has inevitably changed our home enormously!
