3 Essential Questions You Need to Ask Before You Buy a Home

On a personal and practical level, there's a lot to like about owning a home.

You're building equity. Property is one of the closest things to a can't-miss investment that exists. And you don't have to negotiate with the landlord if you want to paint your walls a different color.

But there's one major logistics problem with going from renter to homeowner:

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of new listings appearing every day. 

How do you find the one house that grabs your attention and drives you to say "Yes. This is the place I want to live for the next little while."? 

Here are 3 key questions you may want to ask yourself before you put in a formal offer.

Question #1: Does the House Fit in With Your Current and/or Future Lifestyle?

According to Zillow's Rent vs Buy calculator, the breakeven point of a $300,000 house with a 20% down payment is 2 years and 11 months. In other words, for your house purchase to make sense financially, you'll need to own the property for about 3 years before owning it becomes cheaper than renting it. 

Even before you start factoring in the logistics of securing a mortgage, buying a home is a multi-year, six-figure investment. As such, it's important to make sure that the house you choose is a good match for your preferred lifestyle. 

If you're the type of person who hosts barbecues every other weekend in the summer, you may need to ask yourself if the backyards you're seeing are big enough to handle that. People who work from home may also have to think in terms of finding room for a personal office. 

But beyond the house, it's also important to consider the neighborhood in general. Are there grocery stores and gas stations nearby or are you looking at a lengthy drive? Does the quiet of the suburbs matter to you or do you want to be where the activity is?

No one can decide these things for you. But having a firm answer to this question can simplify your property search in a big way.

Question #2: Are You Okay With the Needed Repairs?

With home improvement projects, repairs generally come in two forms:

Significant and superficial.

And while replacing a cabinet hinge or repainting a wall or two might not seem like a big deal in the beginning, the average cost of home renovations in the U.S. is $47,000.  That's a number that could be the difference between a move-in ready home and an accidentally-acquired fixer-upper.

To be clear, repairs aren't necessarily going to be dealbreakers for everyone. If you happen to know your way around a hammer, you may be able to use things like a problematic basement stair or a carpet in need of a deep clean as a point of negotiation when you make your offer. 

But even then, it's important to know what your threshold is before you get to that "These repairs are way more trouble than they're worth." phase. 

Question #3: What's Included in the Sale?

It's easy to assume that when you buy a house, you're getting basically everything in the sale from the backyard patio to the front porch. 

But as fate may have it, many of the items that you would expect to get with the home purchase, might not actually be included. 

Some examples of this would be:

• Fridges
• Above-ground hot tubs
• Stoves

From the outside looking in, a stove and a fridge don't appear to have much in common. But the deciding factor is whether or not the items you're looking at are considered fixtures. 

Asking about whether the toolshed or the stove come with the house might be a  little awkward during your initial tours of the house. 

No one would blame you for glossing over this one when you're still putting together your short list. 

But even so, these are definitely details that you'll want to have clarified by the time you're extending your offer. 

Here's How You Know That You've Found Your Future Home

Finding and buying the house of your dreams isn't always easy. 

Sure, you can do your due diligence and you can negotiate and make counter-offers. But the difference between "Yes I love this house!" and "I wish I'd bought something else!" is often in the smaller details. 

At the end of the day, nobody can tell you which house is the one that you should buy. But if you ask yourself the 3 questions we've just talked about, you can make the process of finding your dream home a lot easier.