Visual Inspection - Maybe more than one!

This is probably the most important thing that YOU MUST DO when buying property. This is the only way you can know for sure what you are buying. I cannot tell you how many times a client told me that they thought their property didn’t have this or that defect.

See it For Yourself! Videos and pictures are nice to look at but they are no substitute for seeing and smelling everything with your own eyes.  Your property may be next door to a chicken or pig farm and no picture could ever educate you on those kinds of odors! Read about the poor fellow who bought an expensive cliff!

Ask for the plano which is the official legal survey of the property. If it is more than 5 years old then you should ask for a new one.  Use the plano as a map and then walk the whole property.

If you don’t have a plano, you should take a preliminary walk of the property with the owner or their representative. Be sure to take notes of points of interest, things you like and things you don’t like.

Plan on visiting the property again when the plano is ready and before you buy it. I have looked at a property and been told that it is perfectly rectangular and has over 100 meters of public road frontage.  When the plano was completed, the property had a little tiny part of road frontage and was a “flag lot.” On my first visit with the owner we discussed how perfect one areas was for the house and as it turned he didn’t even own that part of the property.

Find the utilities! Don’t believe the owner, agent or anyone else.  If you cannot see the utilities, then you better find out where they are located!

I cannot stress enough the fact that you have to see ALL of the property with your own eyes with the official plano in hand to fully understand what your are buying. I advise you to walk the property with the topographer who prepared the plano.  He will know the property better than anyone.  Even if it takes you two or three hours to walk a large property, those hours could save you thousands of dollars and untold hours of grief.  If you have a GPS you can use it to get an approximate size of the property.