Deciding on what will be the centre of your life for the next 10 years in just 10 minutes? So here’s the first tip for viewing a flat or house: Take your time. It is, after all, a highly significant decision and will usually determine the place you go to recharge the batteries, work and spend time with the family for quite some time to come. You cannot find your own four walls, your ‘home sweet home’, in just a few moments. And when you do find the right place, it is worth taking a very good look at the object of your desire. Without letting anyone else hurry things along.
Searching for a home is usually the most protracted task. It is here that you apply the first ‘filters’ in the form of wishes, ideas and (necessary) requirements for where you want to live. The list of ‘pros and cons’ gets increasingly detailed the closer you get to your ideal home. Breaking the search for a flat into blocks of related themes will produce the following four segments:
The area of law is like a ‘meta theme’, regardless of whether you intend to buy or rent and whether you are searching or offering. You should prepare a checklist in good time for each of these four segments. And they must all be absolutely honest. The following links are helpful and provide some good tips, including relevant questions and aspects for viewing a flat:
As we said in the beginning, you really should not hurry – also and especially if you have been looking for quite some time. If it’s possible, it might be advisable to view a property at different times of the day or week. This does not mean that you have to schedule multiple showings. You can also look at a property from the outside to get a feel for the time of day, the parking situation, delivery traffic, eateries, associated traffic and the direct neighbourhood itself.
There is a final tip that is at least just as important as the initial advice to ‘take your time’: Do not go to the viewing alone. Bring a friend along who means well and sees what you are viewing with a helping of impartiality – and not just the things that are good or nice. We are all prone to succumbing to tempting visions of our perfect home, which might actually mean extensive renovations rather than domestic bliss.
The outcome of your viewing is bound to be positive if you internalise the advice to ‘take your time’ and ‘be honest’. The above links and their checklists offer meaningful assistance to make sure that you do not forget anything.
And you should feel free to reach out to us if you are now facing a big project or investment that you would like to discuss with experts. We – or a professional from within our network – will do everything possible to support you.