Ep 4. Inspection Hacks
This episode breaks down inspections into a macro and micro overview, and takes a deep dive into what you should look for when going to an inspection.
Here’s what you’ll learn from today’s episode:
Using Google Maps to assess the property’s location.
Using Google to investigate planned infrastructure developments nearby.
Interpreting floor plans.
What to look for inside and outside the property on inspection.
Speakers in today’s episode:
Michelle May - Michelle May Buyers Agents
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Please note that any views or opinions presented in this podcast are solely those of the speakers, and do not necessarily represent those of any business. These views and opinions are general in nature, and do not take account of your personal objectives, financial situation and needs. Please consider whether it applies in your circumstances and seek professional advice wherever appropriate.
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Hi and welcome to another episode of Buy You Side Property podcast. My name is Michelle May, and today I want to talk to you about property inspections. I want to run you through some hacks that I have learned along the way, and I'm going to break them down into macro, so the larger the bigger picture of the area around the property, and the micro, so actually looking at the property itself. Because I think you can do a lot of prep work before you actually inspect the property and waste another hour of your time on a Saturday and potentially prefer to look at another property instead if you have looked at listings.
So let's get straight into it. The macro. So one of my biggest friends as a buyer's agent is actually Google. Before I even decide to look at a property in person, I will always look the property up on Google Maps. Both Google Maps and Google Street View are fantastic resources that are completely free to everyone. So the first things I look at are, where is the property actually located? You know, is it on a yellow road? Because if it's on the yellow road, that means there's increased traffic levels, typically bus routes and things like that, heavy goods traffic potentially as well. So I prefer to stay away from those kinds of roads, but it's a good heads up before going to inspect the property, particularly if you're not familiar with that area.
The other thing that you can look up on Google Maps is, you know, how close are the train lines? Train lines are great but you don't want them in the backyard or even so close that, you know, the noise will wake you and keep you up at night. The other thing you can see is it backing onto commercial properties, for example. But you can also work out the walking distance to bus, train, tube, light rail and what have you, where ever you need to be on a regular basis. Now, I use Street View to look at the streetscape and the neighbouring properties. So you want to know that the building that you're buying or, you know, whether it's an apartment block or a house is in a reasonable nick. Now, at the bottom of the page, you can actually see the date that the picture was taken.
So Google is very good. They update their photos and images regularly. So have a look whether that's still current, but also look at anything that may be a negative. For example, electricity power lines. The house next door, is it a hoarder's place? But you can also go into the back lane as well. And another thing you could check out when you're looking at Google Street View is the parking in the street. Is it metered parking? Are there speed bumps? Anything else that may be a positive or a negative? So Google Maps is the first place that I would go once you've short listed a property. The next thing is to use Google again, and the other thing that I would use Google for is to look at its sales and rental history. So, has the property sold numerous times in recent times? Has it been rented a number of times? So there may be an underlying reason why. So tread very carefully there. So if there's multiple listings over recent times, you might want to look into that a little bit further.
The other thing that you can find online, again, on Google and your other search engines of course (not forgetting them), is infrastructure plan. So I would start local with your council, but you can go to state and federal and look at what are they planning in the surrounding area? Is that property going to be affected by any infrastructure projects: tunnels, roads, public transport? Things that not just affect your enjoyment of living there, but also the actual value of the property. Look at the local government council and their future plans. This is all freely available, you just have to turn a little bit into a detective. For example, here in Sydney, we've had the major infrastructure projects going on, such as WestConnex and now also Western Harbour Tunnel and other things, and those projects have caused damage to properties within the vicinity of them. So you'd hate to think that you found the perfect property to buy and then only have to take these massive companies to court because they've caused damage. That's just the stress that perhaps you are better off avoiding. And of course, forewarned is forearmed, you can choose to either take that risk on or not. But it'd be good to know about it before you, again, waste your time on falling in love with a property that has these kinds of issues.
So now that you've looked into the bigger picture, let's get more into the micro of the property. So most properties that are for sale will have a floor plan, and I truly think these floor plans are your best friends, so let's run through some things to look out for. So let's start with aspect. In apartments, especially, aspect is more important than most other things because internal light cannot be improved in an apartment. Generally in houses that may be somewhat more flexible by adding skylights and awnings and what have you. But check out the aspects, so in the southern hemisphere, obviously west and south facing is not ideal. Ideally one north or east facing, but it depends where you are in the world of course.
The next thing I would look at in terms of houses but also apartments is the width of a property. So when you're thinking about, particularly in terraces, say, Victorian terraces, for example; Anything less than three point seven three point eight metres wide makes for uncomfortable living, and you can actually see that going back to the sales history that you've already been Googling, I typically see a higher turnover in those types of properties because really, practically, it's just harder for furniture placement, and people just tend to outgrow these properties. They tend to not really live in them long enough for it to be worth your while. If you think about the cost of purchasing and then selling versus any potential capital growth, it's hardly worth staying in these properties. And remember that a hole is typically one metre wide, so you've got to sort of subtract that from the width of the overall property.
The next thing that I would look at, and this is a cheeky one, because selling agents love to advertise bedrooms, even the ones that don't have windows. So be very careful when looking at properties that, when you're looking at the floorplan they actually have painted in or put in the window, because really, who wants to live in a bedroom without a window? And legally speaking, they're not actually allowed to be called bedrooms. This is also the case with sort of warehouse conversions or these loft style apartments where actually the bedroom is open to the main living area. So you're not really getting any fresh air unless you open up the living room doors. But you're also not getting much privacy. And also, if you're living there as someone else and someone else is watching TV, you're not going to get much sleep. So have a look at how the bedrooms are actually located, do they actually have an outside window? Also, the same goes for internal windows, so sometimes they will draw a window but is actually a window into the hallway. So that also doesn't really count in my book. So make sure you have a good look at that as how we look at the distance from bedrooms to bathrooms, so in older style terraces, quite often there is no upstairs bathroom, so there'll be two bedrooms but no bathroom. So you'd have to traipse up and down the stairs in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, which is located off the kitchen, that's not ideal. You know, if you have small children or if you've had a bit of a party, that can be a bit of a hazardous situation. Now, it's great if you're up for renovation and think, "Yes! I'm just going to move the bathroom", but be aware that moving bathrooms can be very expensive as soon as a plumber is involved and they have to move pipe work. Logistically, it can be very difficult and if not impossible. So just be aware that it's not just something that just can be done and it's going to add a significant amount of cost to improve that floor plan.
Now, then we move onto the flow to the outdoors. How functional is your floor plan, actually? So if you've got a balcony or garden, how well is the living and the kitchen located in conjunction to that? So can you move in and outdoors easily? If you have children, for example, it's very important to have a line of sight from the kitchen to the garden. I don't know if you've got kids, but I've got kids and I always know that when they go quiet, they're up to no good or they might potentially be doing something lethally dangerous, so it's good to have a line of sight. But also on a different level in an apartment, for example, you'd like the balcony to be off the living room and not of your bedroom because in practicality, you're not going to invite your friends to sit on your balcony if they have to come through your bedroom. So look at that flow and the functionality of that outdoor space, but also look at the size of the outdoor space. Is it in line with the indoor space? So you may be buying a house for your family, you're looking for a four bedroom house, but the backyard is so small you can't even put a trampoline in there or, you know, there's no grass for a dog because it's teeny tiny. So sometimes properties are so overcapitalized that it leaves no outdoor space at all, and moving forward, it's not going to be very practical for you. So there's got to be a good balance there.
So you've done your preliminary work, you've looked at the macro, you've looked at the micro. It still stacks up, you're still good to go. So now it's time to go inspecting. So you've got all these facts and figures in place, now when it comes to actually coming to the property, it's really important that you use all your senses. So your eyes, your ears, your nose and your touch. So let's start by looking at ceiling height, internal light, floorplan, size of rooms. So using your eyes, you know, would your furniture fit, bring a tape measure to see whether your bed would fit in the room. Stylists will generally use smaller beds and sofas to make the rooms look bigger than they are. Then also use your eyes to look at the bottom of walls for rising damp, bubbly paint is usually an indication for rising damp. But you can also use your sense of smell because if it's been freshly painted or it smells damp, that's usually an indication that they're trying to hide something. But it may just also be a case of an elderly person not ventilating properly. So have a really good Earnest's look at that, maybe even just peek behind the sofa to see if they're not covering anything, because whilst rising damp is very common in a lot of properties, there is acceptable rising damp that you can fix, and really quite chronic rising damp that is impossible to fix because of a lack of access. So you need to put that into perspective.
Now, when it comes to using your ears, what I mean is listen out for traffic noise, flight path noise, creaky floorboards. When you're down downstairs, can you hear people talking upstairs? But also listen to what the other buyers are saying when they are walking through and listen to the agent when they're talking to the other people at the open. You'd be amazed to hear, you know, all the things that are going on. Sometimes I hear the neighbours talking about the vendor and what situation they're in, and I can actually use that in my negotiations moving forward. So it's really important to just really pay attention. So when you're going through with your partner or your family, don't talk whilst you're going through the property. Observe as much as you can and then discuss afterwards what each of you have found, and you may well have found different things and may have noticed different things when you were going through. Open cupboards and assess whether the storage is adequate, and if not, where could you add more storage? Now, this is not a deal breaker in my book, usually storage is easy and cheap to add. A trip to IKEA can fix most of that, but sometimes you come through a property where it's actually really difficult to find space to add enough cupboard space. Same with the laundry, do you need a dryer space? Where are you going to put your fridge or your dishwasher? You know, are those spaces, are there voids there? Are they adequate in size? So like I said before, make sure you use that tape measure.
Also, if there's access to the attic, quite often there's an attic/a nook there. Always request to have a look. You may have to wait until the end of the open, but always ask for them to bring down the ladder because ultimately it's part of what you're buying and the agent won't mind. They may ask you to wait, like I said, but it's worth the wait. You might need to do it on your second inspection because the first inspection is so crowded, but that's worth doing. And then finally, look at the street, you know, you've already checked it out on Google Street View, but just check it out 'live' so to speak. What do the other neighborhood houses look like? Maybe you can have a chat with the neighbors if they're there. You know, neighbors love having a chat typically when they're coming through an open or afterwards. So definitely take that opportunity to glean some more information.
Now, I think I've given you a very good list to get you started and to sort of be more discerning with your inspection list for Saturday. I think it's important to do this kind of work prior to running yourself ragged on the Saturday and only to find out that half of the properties on the list that you inspected, you could have dismissed or discarded by doing this little bit of research up front.
I hope that was helpful. But as always, if you have any questions regarding anything to do with property, if you need some advice, get in touch at hello@buyyourside.com.au. Thank you for listening. Until next time!