Purchasing your first home is an extremely exciting experience. Finally, you won’t need to hear neighbors blasting techno at all hours of the night or fight for a parking spot when you come home after 9pm. You’ll be able to grow a luscious garden of your own and have the opportunity to hammer nails into the walls without losing your security deposit.

However, like most things in life, practice makes perfect when it comes to buying houses, so it’s inevitable that we’ll make a few mistakes the first time. To spare future home buyers from dealing with the same issues, homeowners on Reddit have recently been sharing all of the things they wish they had done differently when buying their first homes. Enjoy reading through their thoughts, and be sure to upvote the insight you’ll keep in mind the next time you move!

#1

Buying in an HOA. Never again.

Image credits: -make-it-so-

#2

Going with an inspector the realtor recommended. Regret it every day

Image credits: solarslacker

#3

Started too many DIY projects at the same time, demoed. a bathroom for remodel, removed doors from kitchen cabinets to be replaced, started removing wallpaper we didn’t like, removed old beat-up base trim, etc.

Result was we felt like we were living in renovation project for several years. Should have done one project at a time rather than getting carried away.

Image credits: richardelmore

#4

I bought a townhouse on a beautiful golf course. The views from my home are magnificent, but they are out there before dawn 7 days a week doing maintenance. The biggest, loudest equipment I’ve ever seen (or heard) plus weed trimmers and blowers. I don’t golf and the maintenance never crossed my mind when buying this place.

Image credits: chronic_insomniac

#5

Didn’t stay on top of the cosmetic things over thirteen years. The carpet was a bit worn, but no biggie. Could stand to replace the wallpaper in the bathroom with paint, but no biggie. Never did rehang that towel bar but I was a single dude, so no biggie. Refrigerator works but occasionally makes a noise like a clucking chicken, no biggie. And on and on. Filled multiple handwritten pages.

Until I wanted to move. All those no biggie issues became about nine months of doing not much else with my weekends and evenings.

With my current house I now stay on top of that stuff. Never again.

Image credits: Cyrano_de_Maniac

#6

Buying that cute little cabin wayyyy out in the mountains. Can’t work from home as the internet sucks, commute to any job is at least an hour. Buying groceries takes an entire morning and healthcare is 90 minutes away.

Image credits: SeramaChickens

#7

Doors come in different sizes. Fun facts.

Image credits: Cucalope

#8

Could have bought the adjacent lot, it wouldn’t have made a big impact on our mortgage payment, but we didn’t. So a crazy couple build a house there and we were stuck with them for years.

Image credits: sonia72quebec

#9

Starting projects I didn’t know how to finish. Those were tough lessons. As some point, it’s best to give up and call a pro.

Image credits: Spuckler_Cletus

#10

I didn’t call before I dug…hit a gasline. Such a doofus mistake and one I’ll never make again. Gas guy was super cool about it though after I admitted my shame. In the end, came out pretty unscathed both physically and financially thank goodness.

Image credits: Sure-Refuse-2914

#11

Didn’t check the air filter for the HVAC when I moved in. When I went to replace it *almost an entire year later* (that was my second mistake), there was no air filter. Previous owners must have removed it without replacing, so the HVAC system was just raw dogging the air in my condo for an entire year.

Image credits: hermitess

#12

Buying a house that needed a new roof. HOA requires specific tiles, which were on backorder. Homeowners insurance got dropped because the roof wasn’t replaced. By the time it was, the insurance agent ghosted me. It’s been nothing but a nightmare.

Image credits: jayellkay84

#13

Two story house with all the bedrooms upstairs and the laundry was at the opposite end of the house on the lower level.

The builder suggested moving the laundry to the second floor since it was a floor plan change they’d done before.

My mother in law talked us out of it because it would change the guest room layout.

Regretted that decision every time I carried laundry baskets up and down the damn stairs.

Image credits: ChippyVonMaker

#14

Didn’t take care of the bushes and trees in the back. I assumed the rain would take care of them and I could trim as needed.

Almost everything was taken over by Ivy and killed, and everything else died because we didn’t prune enough.

Image credits: Dewalt-Shampoo

#15

I tore out very high quality appliances just because they weren’t stainless steel

I tore out great vintage bathroom tile that seemed dated but I now wish I had kept

#16

Ignoring that weird running water sound we couldn’t identify. We were *very* young, very stupid homeowners and after checking around inside and out we just shrugged and figured it was one of those weird things where you could hear the water in the pipes. Nope. Three days later my mom came to visit, heard the noise, opened the hatch to the six or seven foot high crawl space we forgot we had, and discovered our brand new indoor wading pool courtesy of a busted outdoor spigot that we didn’t know to winterize (did I mention we were young and stupid??). Thankfully fate smiles on the truly foolish. The pipe was fixed, the water seeped into the ground over a period of time, and all was right with the world. I still don’t know who builds a house with a “crawl space” the could double as an unfinished basement.

Image credits: LCK124

#17

The biggest thing my wife and I learned was financial. Just because the bank tells you that you can afford anything up to a certain amount doesn’t mean you should go up to that amount. Sure we enjoyed the house, but we couldn’t really afford to do much. We couldn’t afford new windows that we desperately needed, we couldn’t afford to go on vacations, couldn’t afford to upgrade much of the house etc…. If we ended up staying there we wouldn’t have been able to afford to replace the roof when it would have needed it or handle expensive car repairs. We ended up moving to a more affordable house and now we have some money to start investing for retirement and to buy me a newer vehicle.

Image credits: TonyTried

#18

I didn’t realize my first house was in a flood zone until it came up at closing. I should have walked. But it was all I could afford.

Image credits: secondrat

#19

Thinking all of our neighbors would be neighborly.

#20

We became enamored with a vaulted ceiling in the open concept living/dining/kitchen area when the other option was an additional room over the garage. Hindsight being 20/20, I’d live with a 10 foot ceiling and take the extra room.

Image credits: Imrindar

#21

Realtor told us that the sellers would be really offended if we asked for a home inspection. Bought the house in October without an inspection. The following spring, one of the gutters fell off because the subroof was rotted. Oh, to be that optimistic again.

#22

I had a new home and not didn’t have hardly any furniture or kitchen stuff. I thought I should remedy this immediately by putting all the stuff on cards. Ended up taking years to pay it off, and much of the stuff I bought, I ended up not really liking or using.

#23

Still buying the house…even after the seller rejected my offer, then relisted the house at a much higher price. I was desperate to get out of NYC and was moving to Florida. If I didn’t meet the seller’s new price, it meant that I’d have to take more time off work and spend more money to take another trip back to Florida to start the house search process all over again. So, I ate the extra $50K he demanded. In hindsight, it was so dumb. I should have just stuck it through another NY winter and flown back to look at more options later. I always resented that d**k move and never felt great in this house — and that was one reason. Hopefully, someone in a similar boat learns from this.

#24

As someone who did not grow up in the US, I did not know the difference between vinyl and hardwood flooring. The new construction home I bought had hardwood floors mentioned in the listing (it still has) but the builder gave me cheap vinyl floors and my realtor (who was also selling those new construction homes) did not feel the need to point it out / fix it or get me a deal!
Second, my realtor convinced us that 3 bedrooms + lounge area was better than 4 bedrooms. Builder got to save some money by not having to build a dry wall and completing a closet installation by leaving that area as an open lounge. We did not know any better and thought that a lounge with my TV, guitars and Xbox would be a great idea! I later realized the amount of equity we lost by not building it as a 4 bedroom instead.

Never worked with that realtor again. She still keeps sending us gifts from time to time. As first-time homebuyers from a different country of origin she should have educated us about these options when we had asked.

TL:DR – developing the right filters and mental model to screen your realtor (as a buyer) is invaluable.

#25

Forgetting to blow out the sprinklers before the first freeze of the season. It could have been worse but it was such a preventable thing.

#26

Deciding to paint our own kitchen cabinets and measure/install our laminate countertops ourselves. They aren’t holding up, and wish we had just spent some $ for a professional job.

Image credits: StunButton

#27

I had a main line clog (but didn’t know that). I couldn’t get a snake through the toilet to flush out whatever clog seemed to be affecting that particular toilet. I flushed the other toilet and it worked (but it was at a slightly higher elevation).

So I pulled the toilet.

S**t water everywhere, flooding upwards from the f****e. The wax seal came apart when I pulled the toilet, and It had to be gallons before I got it plugged. I had to cut six inches from my drywall in the whole bathroom and throw away all the trim.

#28

Before making an offer I didn’t visit the house on weekend nights. I may have realized the scale of parties that get thrown in a neighbors house, and that would have saved me grief. Neighbors move, things change…. But look really closely at the neighbors before making an offer.

#29

Not asking what the random 2” red rubber hose above the sump pump (that was apparently replumbed into the main sewer drain system instead of outside the house) was for.

Three basement floods, two check valves, a new sump pump later – an electrician asks why we have an open hose running from the basement into our shed and then into the ground. Prior owners had hooked sump pump drain into the underground runoff pipe for the downspout. When it rained, water would just backflow straight into the basement through the hose.

If you see something that doesn’t make sense, don’t ignore it.

#30

Put grad clippings first time cutting sod into black plastic trash bags and then put them in the garage. After a while our explosive meter started going off – the bags were hot to the touch. It’s then we realized that the decomposing grass was releasing methane and was a fire hazard.

#31

I put in French doors that open in…right into my couch. When my dumb dog finally destroys them (dang squirrels make him crazy) I will replace them to conveniently open out!

#32

Thinking everything was an emergency

#33

I filled the outside weep holes in brick thinking the mortar fell out.

#34

Check the main sewer line usually in basements. I live in NJ. Old sewer pipes can crack and leak and clog up. I skipped this inspection in my first home inspection. Turned out the pipe was cracked and had tree roots growing in. Flood my whole basement with sewage water.

#35

Not figuring out light switches to outlets before I moved furniture in.

Thinking I’d paint walls ‘later’.

#36

I was 23, and my soon to be wife and I decided we didn’t want to spent a penny renting, so we went looking for a home (1975). We found a affordable one that needed work, but couldn’t come up with the down payment. Her dad was loaded (supposedly), but told us timing was inconvenient. So, Aha!! I’d previously had a loan with the credit union, do I applied, put down home improvements for the reason, and got approved 2 days later. While we were waiting to sign at the closing our real estate agent, who knew we were having problems coming up with the down payment, asked how we got it. He went white when I told him, and advised he not to say anything about it unless directly asked. It was illegal to borrow for you down payment!! Paid it off it record time!!

#37

I failed to notice that there weren’t any closets in the house. AT ALL.

#38

Not camera inspecting the drain line.

I didn’t want to pay the extra 150 to drag a plumber out.

1950s Era clay pipe. Belly in the line under my driveway. Excavated and replaced whole line from street to fdn. 6000 dollar fix.(2015).

Never again. Pay to camera the line every time.

#39

You need to change your furnace filters, all of them! (We had a second one in the attic that we forgot to change, so …yeah..repair bill.). ?‍♀️

#40

A fixer upper doesn’t sound like 100k+ work but it ends up being that ?

#41

Checking delivery options, maybe not ridiculous, but i never read about it on any lists to watch for when buying. USPS, private shippers, and places like doordash/instacart. I would leave for work before the post office opened, and the post office was 30 minutes out of the way on the drive home to pick up packages, so I couldn’t make it there during the week. No Uber, Instacart, Doordash, or delivery from stores. The biggest issue I had was my POD for moving. I had everything in a POD to be delivered when I bought a new house and it was in storage while I looked. Turns out they didn’t deliver and I had to get a mover to empty it and drive it to my new house. I didn’t live in the middle of nowhere either, big community, hooked up to local utilities, it just wasn’t a serviced area.

#42

Not reconnecting a downspout that was disconnected.

Getting my roof pressure washed.

#43

waited too long to get a plumber to inspect a leaking pipe in my garage. turns out the damage is way worse than i thought and it’s going to be an expensive mistake even with an insurance claim.

#44

Bought a home warranty

#45

Didn’t think about the combination of a disabled parent plus only one bathroom, which was upstairs. ??‍♂️

#46

I read the inspection and it said “fairly significant grading issue” and then I spoke to the inspector and he said it out loud to me. he said that’s why the dirt basement was always damp.
I didn’t think it was that big of a deal and not nearly the most pressing thing on the list.
we ended up having to spend so much money on the grading and the (eventually) moldy basement.

#47

Buying a house we liked but not caring about resale down the road. Like we had a great house with a tiny tiny yard, which didn’t bother us but turned out to be a pain to sell

#48

Not getting a survey

#49

White grout on our kitchen floor. Stayed white for like 6 months. Kick myself every day for how stupid that was. Only part about our kitchen I hate.

When I replaced our doors I custom ordered them all at the same time. Got the rough opening right, doors showed up. Went to hang the first one aaaaaand we have 2×3 interior studs. I ordered the doors for 2×4 framing. Custom order, not returnable. I think it was like 750$, down the drain.

#50

Planting morning glory seeds without realizing that they spread like crazy and strangle everything else in the garden. I know: it seems like a small thing, but wow, that was dumb of me.

#51

2 bigger ones I can think of:

Accepting a gift $10,000 to help buy a house that we really had no business at the time buying. We were not financially literate at the time and had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. I would never buy something again relying on a gift of money to do so. It means you aren’t ready to buy.

Also, over buying more house than you actually need. Such as 4br house for 2 people or whatever. (Current market conditions may be somewhat curbing this tendency in buyers.)

#52

We bought a home with an old septic system. But the city was putting in a sewer line “soon”. Did not happen soon, and we had to deal with septic issues for over a year.

#53

Don’t assume you can handle the mortgage because it’s close to what you paid in rent.

Image credits: Woodypeoples

#54

Didnt get my sewer line scoped initially, had a blockage a few weeks after purchase, sewer line is compromised and collapsing and needs to be replaced via a burst ~$9,000CAD. Woof.
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