Formulating a Buying a House Checklist

Prior to purchasing a house, it is often a good idea to create a buying a house checklist. This should be a unique checklist tailored to your own specific needs, as each person’s situation is unique. For example, a person purchasing a distressed property will have a much different checklist from someone purchasing a vacation home or primary residence.

Our website has over two dozen additional pages related to buying a house. As you navigate this website and others like it keep a notepad document, spread sheet or even paper and pen handy to jot down information to include on your own buying a house checklist.

It might also be a good idea to create multiple check lists such as one to use when shopping for a home, one to use when searching for finance, and one to use during closing. We’ll give some quick tips on what to include on each check list below.

Shopping for a Home Checklist

If you’re still in the process of shopping for a home, then a check list with everything important to you regarding the property should be developed prior to actual shopping. After all, it is easy to fall in love with a design, a large yard, some unique architecture, color of paint or something else that in the long run might be minor, while then totally neglecting other things you might later find are important.

For example, do you want a home near a school? On a bus route? e Also, does this home have a city garbage removal program or will you need to make trips to the dump? What are the property taxes? Are utilities installed? How is the house zoned? How many bathrooms does it have? What kind of heat is used; how about the same for insulation. This list could go on and on. It is a good idea to search the web using Google, Yahoo or Bing to find other house buying checklists you can use when forming your own. Using a quick search we found a detailed sample checklist.

Home Financing Checklist

The initial check list should have the documents that you’ll need to get in order. Examples are monthly statements of loans that you are currently paying, property tax from last year, past 3 months retirement IRAs, mutual funds, a form from utilities stating that you are current, titles to vehicles and property, driver’s license and Social Security card.

When negotiating the actual loan you’ll want to form a list of questions to ask during closing. For more information see our page on closing cost.

Closing Checklist

Prior to actual signing there are several things you’ll want to do, such as making a final walk through to make sure the condition of the property is as expected and that no items were left behind by the owner. You’ll also want to review the documents, making sure the names are spelled correctly, all fees, interest, payments and terms are clearly stated.

Once again we suggest a Google search using Google, Yahoo or Bing to find some closing checklist that you can use to formulate your own. Our quick search of Google found this checklist.

For more information on buying a house checklist, use the relevant pages linked on our website.