Dated bathrooms, horrid floor coverings, awful countertops — these issues are non-issues. You can easily and relatively inexpensively change them.
You cannot change:
- Distance to neighbors;
- Foundations that clearly will be causing major problems within five years;
- Flood plain status;
- Distance from busy streets;
- Airport holding patterns;
- Neighbors’ constantly barking dogs; or
- Exteriors covered with siding, which provide no structural reinforcement whatsoever.
These are the things you look at in a house.
Who cares what’s on the floors? Carpet can be changed to hardwood. Who cares what the bathrooms look like? Tiles from the 70’s can be replaced. Who cares whether the kitchen counter top looks more like a shower wall than a food preparation surface? It can be renovated.
We’ve come to realize — and thankfully, rather quickly — that we need to look first for problems, primarily with the basement and with privacy. It doesn’t even make any sense to go through a house if there are signs that the foundation is weak or if the neighbors are too close.
It’s better to take a pessimistic view of houses, because the pessimism will undoubtedly be tempered by the general optimism of looking for a house, and you’ll end up with realistic expectations.
Doing so would have immediately knocked our “prime candidate” out of contention, and left our second brick preference out of any further consideration.