`I should have known better,” confesses the north suburban real estate agent, who admits she got herself in a ”real pickle” by hastily buying a home-a fixer-upper at that-and not having an inspection done.
”Because I`ve seen a million houses in my career, I didn`t have a home inspection-because I didn`t expect an old house to be perfect anyway, and I didn`t want anything to cloud up my offer. I wanted it to be as clean as possible because I needed the house quickly,” she says ruefully. ”So I got the house. That was the first mistake.”
Regrets? She`s had more than a few.
First, she says, a couple of the ”normal things” went wrong, like the disposal that conked out after the first week. Shortly thereafter, the hot water heater began leaking in the basement, and she had to call a plumber. He said, ”Yeah, I can fix this, lady, but I can`t do it until you remove the asbestos.”
Then she discovered the storm windows were nailed shut and that the windows had no screens. The house did have an air conditioner, but it was broken.
Finally, after months of tearing down the wallpaper that covered most of the house (”There wasn`t one bare spot of wall,” she says) and repapering the walls with loving care, the house sprung another leak, this one from the upstairs bathroom. She called another plumber, who fired up his electric saw and proceeded to rip into her newly papered hallway and bedroom walls to get to the faulty plumbing.
”I literally went into the kitchen and cried while he was standing there with an electric saw, sawing into my walls,” says the agent, who preferred to remain anonymous.
Sorry situation
While a home inspection probably would have saved her a tremendous amount of grief, even uncovering the physical faults of a home won`t always prepare a purchaser for regrets that often pop up after the honeymoon is over.
”All (home) purchasers go through an emotional roller coaster,” says Blair Thrush, a residential broker for Jameson Realty on Chicago`s Near North Side.
Questions like ”Did I pay too much?” ”What if I lose my job?” or
”Will the neighborhood continue to gentrify?” contribute to a sense of dread among purchasers that`s commonly called ”buyer`s remorse.”
In most cases, experts agree, buyer`s remorse is temporary. It can be considered a psychological case of the flu, giving rise to sleepless nights and sweaty palms before it can work its way through your system, usually after the dotted lines have been signed upon and the first mortgage payment is in the bank.
But beyond buyer`s remorse, many home buyers feel regrets that are more akin to a nagging, lingering cold than a 24-hour virus of the psyche.
The ”house from hell” scenario described above probably wouldn`t happen to many home buyers today, as they`ve become increasingly savvy and inspections have become routine, according to Daryl Hedlin, partner in Century 21 Mid-West Inc. in Vernon Hills.
”Four or five years ago, there were a lot more buyers who . . . would just let things go or gloss over things lightly. But nowadays, I can`t think of any contracts right now that do not have home inspections,” says Hedlin.
Hidden faults
Although an inspection probably will turn up a house`s physical defects, it won`t find the subtle problems buyers might notice later, Hedlin says. Those problems can range from the home`s exposure to sunlight to the number of electrical outlets it has, from storage space to room dimensions.
That last item-not scrutinizing room dimensions-is particularly troublesome for a first-time buyer moving from a large apartment into a small house, says Ron Branch, owner of ERA Branch and Associates on Chicago`s South Side.
”If you`ve got an extra end table that doesn`t fit into the living room, you might be able to move it around the house,” says Branch. ”But your bedroom furniture-your dresser, your chest of drawers, your nightstand and your bed-need to go in your bedroom. And if your new home doesn`t have enough bedroom space, you`re out of luck.”
Some buyers express regret about neighbors, saying they wish they had visited the folks next door, because how well you like your neighbors definitely affects how well you like your property.
”If your next-door neighbor is a pig and they`ve got stuff hanging all over the back yard, it`s hard to enjoy your back yard on a summer day because of the pigsty next door,” Branch says.
Similarly, neighborhood children can be irksome if the buyer doesn`t like children`s noise and activity, he adds.
Buying a rental property usually will require a more thorough investigation of the neighbors, because they`ll also be the tenants.
Tom Hughes, a Chicago building owner, received a call from his business partner one night to check on a broken water heater in one of the apartments they own. Hughes found a bullet hole in the water heater, the result of a pistol-cleaning tenant who`d discharged the gun accidentally.
”When you buy an investment property, you inherit tenants a lot of the time, and you never know how things are going to happen,” says Hughes. ”You can read the books that will tell you about the classic landlord-tenant stuff, but the classic stuff usually doesn`t happen.”
By and large, though, purchasing a home is no shot in the dark. Homework, planning and working with a broker who works exclusively for you as a buyer can give you an edge when purchasing a home, says Cynthia Brick, a broker with Re/Max Intown on the Near North Side. ”When I work with a buyer as their agent, I try to educate them so they live through all the regrets when they`re looking, and then by the time they buy, they`re pretty confident,” she says. But they can also be overconfident. Falling in love with a house from the first viewing may cause buyers to overlook details that cause regrets later.
Window of opportunity
When Bob and Jamiel Jerkan found their Lincoln Park townhouse last spring, they were especially taken with the home`s large, two-story windows with a sunny eastern exposure. In fact, the Jerkans were so taken that they didn`t notice the windows` damaged and missing screens, which ended up costing them about $200 to replace.
”Overall, we`re very happy. We love the place,” says Bob. ”But other places we looked at, we pointed out the minor things to the owner. When we saw (the townhouse), we liked it so much we didn`t notice things.”
While Bob says noticing the screens or the home`s bad flooring up front wouldn`t have changed his decision to buy, he would have used them as
”bargaining chips” in negotiating price.
But some situations still leave cause for kvetching. Another common regret, says Jameson`s Thrush, is not including the cost of home improvements in the initial mortgage and spreading the cost out over the term of the loan. If major home improvements are expected in the short term, borrowing against the home`s equity won`t be possible, and a cash outlay could cause a major financial strain, she says.
”Some people get scared by the cost of rehab or they underestimate the amount of work that needs to be done,” she says. Other buyers can
overestimate the cost of owning a home, particularly one that doesn`t need a lot of work, she adds.
”Young people can be overly conservative in getting 30-year loans because that`s what their parents had and that`s what (parents) told them to get,” says Thrush. ”But you have to remember, our parents didn`t have the
(mortgage) options we have today.”
In the end, though, some buyers can be too conservative, not only about financing, but about the whole process. This being an imperfect world we live in, says one agent, buyers should expect to have one or two minor dissapointments. As Frank Sinatra might tunefully admit: ”Regrets, I`ve had a few . . . .” The key, he says, is not letting the possibility of regrets overwhelm your judgment.
”Some people are so careful in looking at houses that they can never buy anything,” says Brick. ”They look for six months, and they end up renting because they`re so afraid. I think when people get real, real carried away with the details, it tends to make them not buy or not find something. And to me that`s the worst thing of all.”
