NEVER Buy a Home Before Checking This (I’m a Lawyer)

You'd think that being a real estate attorney means buying a home is easy for me. Like I just glide through the whole process, nothing surprises me, no mistakes, no stress. Yeah, that's not how it went. I'm going to tell you exactly how I buy a home, the real process, the things I actually do, and yes, the mistake I made before I knew better that cost me real money. Because if it can happen to me, it can absolutely happen to you. And I'd rather you learn from my story than repeat it. I'm Tiffany Weber, real estate attorney in North Carolina at Thomason Weber. I've done thousands of closings in the Lake Norman area and today I'm pulling back the curtain on my own personal home buying process, step-by-step the way I actually do it. Let's get into it. By the end of this video, you're going to know some of the exact steps I take every single time I buy a property. Some of these you've probably heard before. Some of them might surprise you. And one of them, the first one, I learned the hard way. Stick around for that story because it's the kind of thing that sounds obvious in hindsight, but catches people off guard all the time. Step one, I read the restrictions before I ever make an offer. And I mean before, not during due diligence, not after the contract is signed, before I even pick up the phone to make an offer. Here's why, and here's the story I promised you. Before I really knew what I was doing as a buyer, my husband and I were looking at a vacant lot. We loved it. The location was perfect, the price was right. We could already picture what we were going to build. So we made an offer, got it under contract, and started moving forward. Then I read the restrictions. Turns out the deed restrictions on that lot required a minimum house size that was significantly larger than what we wanted to build, and honestly larger than what we could afford to build at the time. We weren't talking about a small difference. We'd have had to build a much bigger house than we had planned just to comply with the restrictions on that lot. We had to terminate the contract. And when you terminate in North Carolina, you lose your due diligence money. That money is gone. It doesn't come back. So we lost it because I didn't read the restrictions before we made an offer. I have never made that mistake again. Now every single time before I make an offer on the property, I ask the listing agent for the restrictions. The seller should have them or be able to get them. And if for some reason they don't, I just go pull them myself from the register of deeds. You don't need a law degree to do that. You don't need special access. In North Carolina, those records are public and anyone can get them. It takes maybe 30 minutes and it can save you from making an offer on a property that won't let you do what you actually want to do with it. Okay, so that's step one. And that story is exactly why I do it first every time. But reading the restrictions is just the beginning. Let me walk you through what happens once I'm actually under contract. Because this is where a lot of buyers start cutting corners and that's where things go sideways. Step two, I do not skip the final walkthrough. I know people who skip the final walkthrough. I understand why. You're tired, you're excited, you just want to get to the closing table. But I don't skip it, ever. Here's the thing about the final walkthrough that people don't always understand. It's not just a chance to see the house one more time before it's yours. It's your last opportunity to verify that the seller has held up their end of the bargain. If repairs were negotiated, if the seller agreed to fix something as part of the contract, the final walkthrough is where you confirm those repairs were actually done. And if they weren't done, then we have a problem. Because I'm not closing until they are. I actually prefer to know the repairs are completed before we even get to the final walkthrough, not at the walkthrough, before it. That way there are no surprises, no last minute scrambles, no awkward conversations at the closing table about something that should have been handled weeks ago. If you show up to the final walkthrough and agreed upon repairs haven't been completed, the closing is probably not happening on the originally scheduled date. And that's okay. It's the right call. The seller made a commitment. If they haven't followed through, you don't have to close. Like, everything is fine. Hey, if you like videos like this, I do this every single week. Subscribe to the channel and let's get right back into it. Step three, I check the permit history. This one doesn't come up in every transaction, but when it matters, it really matters. Whenever I'm buying a property where something has been added or modified, a deck, a finished basement, an addition, a detached garage, I check the permit history with the county. And here's the thing. I say this with full transparency. My husband and I have built an unpermitted deck before, so I'm not up here judging anyone. It happens. People do work on their homes without pulling permits all the time. But as a buyer, you need to know about it because if you buy a property with unpermitted work and the county comes knocking later, that's your problem now. You might be required to bring it up to code. You might have to tear it down. You might have issues when you go to sell. Checking permit history is usually pretty straightforward. Most counties have it available online or through the county offices, and it doesn't take long. It tells you whether the work that's been done on the house was done with proper oversight or not. If there's unpermitted work, that doesn't automatically mean you'd have to walk away. It just means you go in with your eyes open and decide whether you're comfortable with the risk. That's a very different position than finding out after you've already closed. So we've got the restrictions, the walkthrough, the permits. Now here's the one that I think most buyers, even pretty informed buyers, don't go deep enough on, and that's the HOA documents. Step four, I read all of the HOA documents, not just the restrictions. Most people, when they hear HOA documents, they think about the restrictions. And yes, I read those, but I go further than that. If the restrictions reference rules and regulations, and a lot of them do, I want copies of those rules and regulations too, because the restrictions might say, refer to the community rules for pool usage. And then the rules say the pool is reserved for a swim team five days a week, and residents can only use it on weekends. That's pretty relevant information if you bought the house partly because of the pool. I also look at the financials, specifically the reserve funds. Does the HOA have enough money set aside to actually take care of things? If the HOA is responsible for maintaining the roads in the community, and the reserve fund is basically empty, that's a red flag. Because when those roads need work, the money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is usually a special assessment on the homeowners. And then I look at the bylaws. How many homeowners have to vote in order to change the restrictions? This matters more than people realize. If you're buying in a community because you love the way it's governed and the rules that are in place, you want to know how easy or hard it is for those rules to change after you move in. The HOA documents are not exciting reading. I'll be honest with you. But they tell you a lot about what you're actually buying into. Not just the house, but the community around it. Step five, I use an agent. And yes, I'm a real estate attorney. This one always surprises people, and I get it. The assumption is that because I'm a real estate attorney, I don't need an agent. I can write my own contract. I know the process. Why would I pay someone else to do something I can do myself? Here's my honest answer. Because there is a lot that goes into buying a house that has nothing to do with the legal side of it. Do I need an agent to write a contract for me? No, I can do that. But do I want to be the one managing the emotional back and forth of a negotiation on a house that I'm personally attached to? Not really. Having an agent handle that takes the emotion out of it. And when you're buying something you actually want, emotion can cost you money. But more than that, a good agent has a network. They know the inspectors, they know the surveyors, they know who to call and who to avoid. They quarterback all of those moving pieces so I don't have to. And that is genuinely valuable to me, even to someone who does this for a living. I know the legal side of real estate really well, but I don't know everything. And having someone in my corner who knows the people, the process, and the local market, that takes a lot off my plate as a buyer. I think it's worth it every time. So that's how I buy a home. Read the restrictions before you make an offer. And I mean before, not after, because I learned that lesson the expensive way. Don't skip the final walkthrough, especially if repairs are negotiated. Check the permit history on anything that's been added or modified. Read all of the HOA documents, not just the restrictions. And use an agent, even if you think you know enough to go it alone. None of these steps are complicated, but they are the difference between buying a home with confidence and buying one with a blindfold on. And look, I've been doing this for years, done thousands of closings, I've bought eight properties, both residential and commercial, and I still follow every single one of these steps when I'm the buyer, because the process protects you. That's what it's there for. Now, if this was helpful, here's what I want you to watch next. We talked about what I do before and during the buying process, but there's one specific thing that happens at the closing table that most buyers don't fully understand until they're sitting right in front of it. And that's the closing disclosure. It's a document that shows every single dollar you're being charged, and if you don't know how to read it, you won't know if something's wrong. I break it down line by line right here. Go check that one out. I'll see you over there.