Have you ever seen the movie, The Money Pit? Look, maybe you have and maybe you haven't. Anybody who's lived through the 1980s remembers the movie with Tom Hanks from the Money Pit when everything that went wrong in that house they bought.

So today, we're going to talk about the top five things to look out for when buying a house in North Texas.

 

 Soil

Living in North Texas is very different than living in different places. It gets really hot in here, over 100 degrees at times. It hails. We have expansive soils, and we have a few other things. We just want to make sure that you avoid those pitfalls. Well, if you're looking to move to the North Dallas area and you have never been here, or even Texas, things are very different here! For example, unlike Chicago, we don't really have basements here!

The first thing we want you to look out for, along with that soil, and the fact that we don't have basements is because we have a moving soil in this part of the country. That moving soil creates some different issues with the foundation. So we're always going to want to look out for foundation problems and excessive settlement. We're normally going to have a few cracks here and there in some of the houses in Texas, but we want to make sure that those cracks aren't excessive and going to cause you major problems down the road.

 

About two years ago, we had a house that we were trying to sell that another agent had been their agent on their purchase side for. When we went to sell the house, that person had no idea that that house had had extensive foundation work done to it previously. Unfortunately, some of that foundation work did not have a warranty and was done in a substandard fashion

 

When we went to sell that house, it really felt like you were walking through a fun house. The floors were completely un-level. There was massive slopes to it. And when buyers would walk through it, it was a real problem. And being able to sell that house was very difficult. The only buyers that were willing to buy it were investors that wanted to buy it for way undervalue. We want you to avoid that.

Termites

So, the next thing on our list is termites. Termites here in North Texas are actually very, very common. Due to this, we always recommend our clients have a termite inspection and avoid any problems down the road.

Insurance Claims

The third thing that we're going to talk about that you have got to watch out for here in the North Texas area is previous insurance claims. Where the homeowner somehow collected on the claim, but didn't do all the repairs.

That's not good. So as an agent, our job is to make sure that that's taken care of before you close. Otherwise, that could be a lien on you later on.

 

The most common place that we see this is from hail damage. We'll get hailstones that'll damage the roof. Some people will choose to fix what they think needs to be done and not everything and work things out under the table with the roofers, the gutters, fences, things like that. Anything that's not been repaired is no longer insurable for you on the next claim.

 

Plumbing

The fourth thing is the plumbing lines. Plumbing lines sound really, really simple, but the older the house, we recommend anytime a house is more than 30 years old, that you have a plumber come in and do an inspection as well as your regular inspector on that home. Either scope or hydrostatically test those lines to make sure that there are no breaks in the plumbing line leaving the house. Those are not covered under a typical homeowners insurance policy. They're no longer covered under most home warranties unless we get extended pipe leak coverage, which we highly recommend you get on any house over 30 years old. And believe it or not, a regular inspector, they do not do that camera scope, so that's something that you have to contact a licensed plumber to do.

 

For example, about four years ago, we had a client who continually had problems with sewage backing up into their shower in their master bathroom. Later on, we found out that was because there was a break underneath in the sewer line that was never recognized or noticed before. Again, that's because of the expansive soils that we have with older plumbing. Once that was fixed, the problem was solved, but it required them digging out underneath of the home to get that. We would have avoided a $12,000 repair had we just simply inspected the property.

 

HVAC

The fifth thing is the HVAC system here in Texas. You probably already know, but we get really hot temperatures come the middle of the summertime here. It's not uncommon for us to have a number of days over 100 and up to 105, 106 degrees on occasion. You really don't want to be in your house at 100 degree temperature. One of the problems that we've seen over the years is people get a substandard, just a basic inspection. Your regular inspector is always going to defer on certain things like plumbing, air conditioning, and foundations. We recommend that the air conditioning systems always be double checked. It's a good idea to have a reputable air conditioning technician come out and inspect the property. Or if we see problems with the initial inspection, we can push that back to the sellers and have them pay for it. Getting that inspected is really important. We've had numerous clients over the years who have gotten into a house, everything seemed to work just perfectly, and they argue, "Well, it worked on the day that we sold the house." But, when we had further inspections done, we find out that it's got rusted out coils and it's leaking down. And that system is running on the edge of its life. Last time we checked, it was like $1,800 just to replace the coils, so it's not cheap. A $125 inspection saves you from a $2,000 repair.

 

So when buying a house in North Texas, it's really important that you know what to avoid and what to look for to find a really good house and avoid living in the money pit.

After all these years of doing real estate, we've seen some crazy stuff. And we're going to look out for you and help you to avoid those problems. So if you're looking to buy, sell, or invest in real estate here in the North Dallas area, in the North Dallas suburbs of Plano, Allen, Frisco, McKinney and anything that borders them, we're here for you.

 

Again, I'm Angel. And I'm Chris. And we're owners of the Mickle team, a real estate team here in North Texas. Thanks for stopping by!