A retired old man once stated a fact after his son lost his employment in the 2007 Global Financial Crisis What is more of a burden than buying a new house is maintaining that house. This is a fact, although most of us tend to ignore the same. Only accountants and economists take into account the maintenance costs or what they call depreciation’ costs. This article highlights a few maintenance issues regarding roof problems or garage doors.
Estimating the cost
If a person wins a lottery or gets a bonus, he or she may turn to buying a new house without giving due thought to the belief that housing market is going up. Whether in an economic bubble or not, a potential buyer should always estimate the possible maintenance costs.
Possible kinds of defects which involve high costs
A potential buyer must think of the possible costs that he might need to meet in the long run. A few of the areas, which involve costs, are often not told to customers upfront by real estate agents. These include
Dampening. Over the time, the walls tend to become damp or wet. These wet corners of the rooms lead to the automatic formation of molds and fungus overtime.
Leakages – Leakages in the garage roofs are very common among homeowners. People often store their unused yet useful items in the garage. Leakages in the roofs allow rainwater to drop on those goods and ruin them. Many homeowners have to deal with ruined cardboard boxes full of old books and magazines because of leakages.
Rusting of garage doors – With more and more contact with rainwater, the doors of garages tend to get rusted over the years. Rusted garage doors disrupt the view of the garage. Even if people paint the door with simple colors, rust on the doors kills the appeal.
Jamming of pipes – Often the pipes get choked in due course of time due to the faulty sewage of plumbing systems. Getting them repaired implies high maintenance cost.
These common problems may arise due to construction failures, design failures or material failures.
Precautions that may be taken
It is better not to rely on the real estate agent because they go by their objective of selling a house as soon as possible.
If a person cannot estimate the maintenance costs of the house under discussion, then he should go for a lower-priced house. Taking risks related to huge investments is not recommendable.
Before buying the house, it is recommended that the buyers familiarize themselves with the neighborhood and ask them about the problems they had faced in their houses.