Before affixing your signature on a contract to buy a home, and complete the process on how to buy a house, there are a number of important things that you need to keep in mind. For one, you have to spend some time to look over and inspect the home to make sure that your future home is safe from flood damage and termites.

Although in most cases, you will find some cosmetic changes that you will need to do on your new home, it is always best to avoid spending for costly repairs once you have settled down. Following are 6 things that you need to keep in mind when looking at available homes for sale; this way, you will not inherit whatever problems the previous tenants had.

1. Check for basement moisture. – While home inspectors will, most of the time, gladly do this for you, you can try looking for signs of dampness in the basement on your own. If there are no apparent signs on the walls, try to see if there are devices and stuff that control and take moisture from the air such as dehumidifiers, silica, and other similar materials. If the seller of the house is wise enough to remove these things while you are inspecting the property, look for areas near the outlets that may show dust rings or are newly cleaned, and where some dampness-control measures might have originally been.

2. Open all the windows. – It is never fun to replace or repair the windows. It can be expensive as well. Make sure to open the windows to see if they open properly and are not stuck.

3. Inspect the drains. – This is an important step on How to buy a house, but it is difficult to see unless you fill up the sinks and tubs, do some laundry, and then let everything drain at the same time. This will let you know if there is a backup somewhere between your home and the sewer lines which could be a collapsed pipe or tree branches.

4. Turn all the faucets on. – Replacing faucets may not be particularly difficult, but it is very inconvenient to put a pan under a sink whenever a faucet is leaking. It is therefore best to check each and every faucet to eliminate possible irritants in the future.

5. Try flushing the toilets. – It would be a bonus if all toilets in your home can properly handle and dispense toilet paper. However, it is a must that each toilet flushes properly. If you are not satisfied with what you see, have the owner fix the problems before you commit to buy.

6. Check the electrical panel. – The panel must be clean and appropriately labeled. A messy panel could mean future trouble. Check for loose wires as well as those that have no connection as there may be some live wire somewhere in the walls.

The process on how to buy a house may be cumbersome but it is not really difficult. You have to be cautious every step of the way because one misstep may result to unnecessary expenses.