Purchasing a home is one of the most exciting things in life. Imagine leaping from being a renter to not having to answer to anyone. However, before you get swept up in all the excitement, there are certain things that you need to do. It’s important to ensure that the investment you have worked so hard to make is well taken care of. Here are some preparations that you need to make as a first time home buyer.
Avoid Overspending in Personalization
After handing over a huge portion of your life savings to pay for your home and to cover closing costs and moving expenses, it’s highly likely that money will be tight for you. There are a lot of costs that come with homeownership. For instance, now you will have to handle the water bills, trash collection, and insurance. All these costs mean that you have to be a bit clever about how you go about spending money.
While it can be quite exciting to personalize your home and turn it into a design build remodeling project, you shouldn’t be in a hurry to do things like painting interior doors ideas. Take time to get around the house and create a priority list. Excessive expenses like shed delivery might jeopardize your new status as a homeowner. Apart from creating a priority list, you mustn’t be in a rush to do things. Give yourself enough time to recover and rebuild your savings. Every upgrade and repair that you need to make will still be waiting for you when you are in a better position to use more money. If you need to make fast repairs like painting interior doors ideas, consider looking into fix and flip loans, especially if you want to sell the home.
Work With Qualified Contractors
When it comes to repairing your home, you must avoid trying to save money by handling work that you are qualified enough to handle. Your home is more than just a place where you live. It’s also an asset and an investment. This means you also have to think about it in terms of value. If you want the value of your home to keep going up, you need to handle it with the same level of care that you would anything that is of great value to you.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with handling a few repair jobs like painting interior doors ideas on your own, but if there are some missing shingles on the roof, climbing up there to try and inspect or fix things might not be such a good idea. If you want to protect your investment, the best you can do is to hire and work with professionals.
You will also want to work with a professional HVAC company when doing HVAC inspections and repairs. This will not only preserve the value of your home but will also prevent injury. You can fall from the roof and die if you are not careful or if you don’t have the right safety equipment. Also, you must always check with your local building authority to see if any permits are required to complete certain tasks. Professionals will know all this beforehand.
Prepare to Secure Your Home
Before you invest too much into the looks and painting interior doors ideas, you need to feel safe in your new home. One of the first tasks that you might need to do when you have just purchased your home is to change locks and codes. These security-related tasks must be taken care of before you start living in your home.
If you don’t change locks and codes, everyone who previously had access to your home can just enter whenever they want. If for some reason, you can’t change the locks right away, you must at least go around the house to see if there are any spots where someone might have hidden a spare key or two. People usually place their spare keys under rocks or inside the door frame. If your home has a digital security system, you must ask for the instruction manual. That way, you can figure out how to change all the necessary codes. For instance, you will definitely need to change the garage code and the home alarm code.
If your home security system is working as it should, there shouldn’t be any extra costs associated with changing codes or updating passwords. However, if your home comes with an alarm system, you might need to reconnect the service, or you can even choose a different provider.
Review Your Home Warranty or Purchase a New One
When buying a house, it’s possible to receive a home warranty that was purchased by the previous owner. These warranties usually cover your home’s major systems or appliances. The last thing you will need to deal with is repairs just after purchasing your new house. If your home comes with a warranty, it might be time to dig deeper into the specifics. This will clarify things for you as far as what’s covered and how to file a claim. If your home doesn’t come with a warranty, this might be the time to start considering getting one.
There are many home warranty service providers, and each one covers a variety of items. When you are buying a new home warranty, think about the things that are at a higher risk of breaking down. You must also ensure that the things that are expensive to replace are covered as well.
When it comes to home warranties, you must take time to shop around for the best deals. It’s important to pay attention to detail so you can get the one that best suits your needs. For instance, you might want to ensure that all the big-ticket items are covered. These include air conditioning installations and repairs, the water heater, the furnace, and some kitchen appliances. You will also want to make sure that you understand the terms of the warranties. A commodities lawyer can help you out here.
Warranty prices usually vary depending on the items that you would have selected. To get the best deal, make sure you compare quotes. Coverage prices also depend on the length of the contract.
Make Sure All Utilities Are Connected
If you haven’t owned a home before, you might make the mistake of overlooking the utility connection. People often think too much about things like painting interior doors ideas and improving curb appeal. However, utilities come first. There are several must-have utilities, including water, gas, and electricity. These must be connected before you get into your new house. That way, the move-in process can be smooth, and you will have all the essential necessities while you are settling into your new home.
Depending on your neighborhood, a utility connection can be a process. To find out about all the steps and how long it may take, check with your local service provider. They will usually require some type of ownership or residence verification. You must also ask them how far in advance you need to schedule turn-on for your utilities.
Verify that the Smoke and Carbon Dioxide Detectors are Working
Apart from thieves and intruders, there are other things that can also threaten the safety of your family. One of those things is fire. For this reason, you must take the time to ensure that every one of your home’s smoke and carbon monoxide detectors is working perfectly. In some instances, you may need to install fresh batteries or replace entire units.
Ideally, the smoke detectors in your home should be placed in a hallway leading to your bedrooms. You must also keep in mind that fires are most likely to originate from the kitchen or laundry room. For this reason, you must also make sure that there are several smoke detectors around those areas. If you have just purchased a new home with multiple floors, it’s crucial to ensure that there’s at least a single smoke detector on every floor.
Most fire safety experts recommend inspecting and replacing the batteries in your detectors twice yearly. This will ensure that everything stays in working order. You may even need to set a reminder so that you don’t forget when it’s time to change. It might be necessary to check with your local fire department to see if they can help you in any way. Most of them offer free inspections, and they can help you test if you call the non-emergency line to schedule an appointment.
Create a To-Do List Using Your Pre-Purchase Inspection Report
Before you buy a home, a pre-purchase inspection should be conducted. This inspection will help you uncover and highlight any problematic areas in your home. Any areas that were flagged should be fixed gradually so you can enjoy your home fully. In some instances, the seller can opt to sell the home as-is without making all the necessary repairs. For instance, they might leave things like painting interior doors ideas to you. The best you can do in such instances is to take the inspection report and use it as a guide.
Make a list of all the issues that need repairs, updates, or maintenance work. Make sure the top priority items are addressed first. You can deal with items that are not too urgent later on. For instance, you can invest money to repair printers while the HVAC isn’t working properly. Ignoring repairs to avoid expenses will only blow up in your face later on. Things like dirty gutters, leaky pipes, or drafty doors and windows should be addressed as soon as possible.
Maintenance work is crucial to keep your home running in perfect shape. This is why you must put in the sweat equity to ensure that your home’s maintenance needs are taken care of. This can also help you to prevent expensive repair headaches in the future.
Fresh Coat of Paint
One of the cheapest ways to turn the house you just purchased into your home is to give the interior and sometimes the exterior a fresh coat of paint. You can also look into painting interior doors ideas. The good thing is no one can tell you what colors to use for painting interior doors ideas, and no one dictates the timeline as well. You can choose to go room by room if that’s what you can afford. Everything will be all on your terms. If you can, try to paint your home before you move in.
When it comes to painting interior doors ideas, your interiors, and your exteriors, for the best outcome, you need to work with professional exterior painters. Find out from them if they can offer you a discount for painting empty rooms. After all, they won’t need to move furniture around or cover things to avoid staining. All they will have to do is simply lay a tarp flat on the floor. This will make the job of painting interior doors ideas and walls faster and easier for them.
Inspect the Circuit Box and Learn About Emergency Shut Offs
Even if you haven’t bought a new construction home, your home will still be new to you. This means you need to take the time to understand how everything works. When it comes to your home’s electrical system, you need to locate the emergency shut-offs and the circuit breaker box. The box should have labels. However, in some instances, it might not. If there are no labels on the box, add some labels so you can easily figure out which circuit goes to which room or appliance. Finally, make sure that you have all the copies of all the appliance manuals. This is the best way to figure out how everything works.
Come Up With a Home Maintenance Schedule
Maintaining your home can be costly. As such, it might be wiser to approach the tasks as a marathon rather than a sprint. However, you will still need to have a schedule of how everything is going to be addressed. Think about all the things that need to be done over time and those that need to be dealt with right away. Make sure your home maintenance list fits your budget. You might also have to look into how you can make maintenance tasks cheaper by acquiring second-hand time and used restaurant supplies for your kitchen.
These are some of the preparations that you need to make as a first time home buyer. It’s important to take the time to ensure that your home is ready before you start staying in it. This will not only make your home more comfortable, but it will maintain or even improve the value of your home. On the other hand, ensuring that every repair and maintenance task is taken care of is a good way to save money as well. If you need help preparing your home sealing the deal, get in touch with us today.
