Seven Essential Tools to Take With You on Your House Hunt
Everything about buying a home is fraught. Of course there is money . And research . And the emotional toll of trying to translate your family’s needs and dreams into a pile of bricks and drywall. But one of the most tedious aspects of looking for a new home is visiting all those potential homes and trying to determine whether buying one is a good idea or a mistake that will ruin your life.
You should have a solid real estate professional on your side, but you can also rule out many properties outright if you gather enough data. Every time you visit a home you might want to buy, it’s an opportunity to kick the tires, so to speak, and look for obvious problems that can help you narrow down your choice. But this requires data, and data requires tools—physical tools. Here are the essential house hunting tools you should put in your “open house kit” and bring with you to every home you visit in your search for your dream home.
Roulette
There are many reasons why you should be able to measure things when walking through a home you might be buying:
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To ensure that the listed home area is accurate. There are often major discrepancies between reality and listing, so on-the-go measurement is a must.
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To be sure that the furniture you take with you will fit through doors and up stairs and end up in the room it is intended for. This also applies to things hanging on the walls, including that huge TV you just bought.
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Space for appliances in the kitchen and laundry room if you’re bringing your own or planning to replace some older models.
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Cabinets. If you’re told you’re buying a walk-in closet, it should be at least four feet by four feet . You can also compare them to your current ones to make sure they fit your items.
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Vertical space. There is a huge psychological difference between eight and nine foot ceilings.
One thing to note is that you can use an app on your phone to take measurements or a fancy laser meter, and this will work if you’re just looking for rough measurements . If you need to be precise, you should use a good old metal tape measure .
Hygrometer
Water damage and leaks can be hidden fairly easily—a quick drywall or floor repair, a little paint, and even carpet or a carefully arranged stack of boxes in the basement can make a damp home feel dry. Moisture problems are not always obvious to the homeowner and can develop silently inside walls or attics for years before being noticed.
Instead of relying on your eyes and the disgruntled statements of the person selling you their home, take a good moisture meter with you and take readings while walking through the house. You may need to take reference readings in a dry location, but most moisture meters have a scale from 1 (bone dry) to 100 (wet). Generally speaking, a humidity reading above 17 is cause for some concern, with the level of concern increasing with each reading.
Pocket level
Very few houses, even new ones, are truly square. Houses settle, materials become slightly deformed, and small errors may occur that are invisible to the eye. Therefore, you should not expect that in any home you will find perfect 90-degree angles and perfectly flat floors. That being said, severely sloping floors, warping walls, or substandard kitchen cabinets can be serious warning signs that this home could be a money pit.
A pocket level can be pulled out in each room for a quick inspection, alerting you to underlying problems that could indicate foundation problems or similar catastrophic situations.
Camera
This may be obvious: but always take something with you that can be used for photography. Your phone will be fine if you take the time to organize your images and clearly label them for future use. Take lots of photos from different angles to refresh your memory when it comes time to make a decision. This is important because you don’t want to rely on the photos provided in the ad, which can often be carefully staged or even misleading .
Flashlight
A pocket flashlight will come in handy when walking around the house. There will be dark spaces behind and under furniture and appliances, dark basements or basements, and strange crevices that you’ll want to check for spiders, mold, or portals to alternate universes. Bright light will also help eliminate shadows that may hide (or be mistaken for) problems.
Water pressure gauge
It’s a cliché, but checking your water pressure is actually helpful when you’re thinking about buying a home. Water pressure affects many aspects of your life: low pressure means showering will be a longer and more unpleasant experience, doing laundry will take longer (and may require extra rinse cycles), and may indicate a plumbing problem.
This is why a pressure gauge is a good idea. They typically screw onto a hose connection and measure water pressure in pounds per square inch (pounds per square inch). The normal range is from 40 to 80 psi, and the optimal value is around 50 psi. Anything outside of this range is an issue that you should look into before making a down payment.
Socket tester
You won’t be able to see through the walls of your potential home, and just because the outlets look new and modern doesn’t necessarily mean the wiring is good. But you can at least stick a socket tester into a few outlets to make sure everything is working correctly. You want to see 110 to 120 volts at every regular outlet, and you certainly don’t want to see or hear any alarms when you plug the tester into the outlet.
Buying a home is a big deal. Carrying these tools when you go to an open house or inspect a property with your real estate agent can save you a lot of time and hassle by identifying problems before they become problems .