Purchasing a house is a huge investment. We suggest building a checklist when researching potential homes. In this post, we cover a home buying checklist for paint, stucco, and plaster.
Paint and stucco
A house exterior generally makes the biggest impression on you when seeing it for the first time. Many homebuyers, however, often mistake of solely looking at color schemes. In reality, a close investigation of the home’s outside can show you quite a bit about the quality of the structure.
People who sell homes are not dumb. Before putting their property on the market, they are going to make improvements to increase buyer interest and boost the value buyers see in it.
There is nothing devious about this practice. It is natural to want to get the most out of an investment, and someone selling a home isn’t going to act differently. For this reason, you should closely at the exterior paint and/or stucco on a home.
Watch for peeling and flaking
First, look for peeling or flaking of paint on the outside walls. If you see flaking in an obvious place, it’s very likely the house needs a total repaint.
In most cases you are not going to find such obvious issues. Instead, you must stick your eyes around and behind bushes, under roof overhangs and in other nooks and crannies. If you find problems such as these, it’s very possible that the paint was not applied correctly. Once these issues start, count on them getting worse in time.
Pay close attention to stains and signs of water damage
The second thing to watch for is stains or blemishes around perforations in the paint. For example, look for where bolts or nails penetrate a painted surface. If you witness rust around the hole, this could be a sign of poor maintenance. Worse, you may be looking at an indication of a water drainage problem. Investigate very carefully.
With stucco homes, you are usually going to discover some cracking due to earth movement and temperature changes. If these cracks are relatively small, you shouldn’t have problems patching them with the help of an affordable stucco contractor in Gilbert, AZ.
Avoid problems that require expensive repairs
The bigger issues is if you find stains or soft areas at the bottom of a stucco wall. This can signify problems with the drainage screen behind the stucco that is not allowing water to get out. If moisture remains behind the stucco, it will continue to deteriorate. You will likely have a mold problem at some point. This can be very expensive to repair.
When shopping for the best home buying opportunities, you should look very closely at the exterior components of the home. After all, the merits of the home come down to the smallest details that aren’t always visible at first.