Home sellers are often looking for ways to sell their homes easier and market them to more potential buyers. Unfortunately, many home sellers will go to extreme lengths to hide things that might bring down their buying price, repel a certain type of buyer, or prevent anyone from buying the home altogether. These things are often minor, but can make a big difference to the people who are buying a home. For example, something that may be a small annoyance to the current owners of the home may be a big drawback to those who are thinking about purchasing a new home.
Exterior Features
Exterior features that many home sellers try to hide include a cracked or faulty sidewalk, unattractive outside materials, and even soil that is not conducive to a good grass growing environment. These features may be minor and may only be something that would be quick to fix, but buyers can use these features to help bring down the cost of the home. This would cause the home sellers to possibly lose money on the home or not make as much as they would have liked to when selling. Other exterior things that can also be hidden are insect or pest problems.
Interior Features
Interior features that are hidden within the home can cause more problems for the buyers. These things, such as bad plumbing or faulty electrical wiring, are easily hid but are not so easily fixed. A subfloor that is creaky or faulty in any way, thin walls, and even ugly carpet can be hidden by home sellers, but will not cause as serious of problems as the other hidden issues. These problems should all be checked by a trusted home inspector before the final purchase stage.
Neighborhood
Sometimes, home sellers can hide things about the neighborhood or the area surrounding the home to help improve the chances of selling. A neighborhood may have a high crime rate, may be in a flyover zone, or may have a large amount of other issues. These are things that will definitely deter buyers and the sellers of the house may know this when they are trying to sell the home – they will schedule home buyers to come and look at the house during times when there is not a lot of air traffic or in the early day when there is not a lot of apparent negative behavior.
With the help of technology, it can be more difficult for home sellers to hide things that are wrong with a property. Fortunately, potential buyers can look up neighborhood statistics on the internet, pull up a home’s history, or even connect with parties who have knowledge of the home. With the help of a trusted real estate agent, buyers can be confident that they are making a smart purchase.