How to buy a cottage

Purchase of a finished country house – this is buying a pig in a poke: quality is almost impossible to assess. What should the buyer do in this situation?? How to choose a cottage, which will not require dozens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring it to mind? Any construction site is troublesome, and therefore buying a finished cottage, according to experts, looks like an option, saving time and effort.

Underwater rocks

“Bought, moved in and live without worries” – most consumers count on it, acquiring the first house in their life. In practice, their dreams almost never come true.. House “turnkey”, bought for 500 thous. dollars, do not guarantee an easy life.

Electricity goes out in the first winter, followed by a gas boiler. “Horror night” – by candlelight, in a dark village, at a temperature “overboard” minus 30 – will be remembered for a lifetime. In the morning – purchase of a backup generator, running on gasoline. Changing the boiler soon: he, as it turned out, was dirtied by builders.

“In the spring, water appeared in the basement (poorly done waterproofing), and it turned out, that the ventilation system needs to be redone”, – says one of the homeowners. From another house over a thousand “squares” in the Obukhiv region, the owners fled in the middle of winter: even two powerful heating boilers did not save from the cold. Invited experts discovered, that a small mistake was made during the construction: when laying the roof, put the vapor barrier material on the wrong side. As a result, the insulation was soaked and worn out., the rafters rotted, fungus appeared. Now the owners need to re-cover the copper roof. Issue price – 300 thous. dollars.

“Professionalism” and “frugality”

This is not a disaster movie script, and typical stories of people, who bought ready-made cottages. And before the disease, which is called “poor construction quality”, turn out to be all equal – and trendy mansions, and cheap townhouses. Experienced buyers perceive the problem already philosophically: “The house "turnkey" needs to be brought to mind for a couple of years, and that's ok”. Why cottages under construction today require a long and expensive debugging?

Quality has never been a strong feature of domestic builders. Recently, the problem has sparkled with new colors.. “Yes, construction quality is low. And what do you want, if there are no professionals? – developers confess. – Construction vocational schools were closed in the early 1990s. The "masters" are working, who don't understand, “what is good, what's bad”. They work for a penny according to the principle “mine can do everything”. Low professionalism and non-compliance with technologies are often accompanied by ordinary theft of foremen and builders. “Save” on the brand of concrete, insulation, brick and everything else. In the constructed facility, check and calculate, how much was spent on this or that material, hard. “Save” and the developers themselves. “A lot of developers increase their profits at the expense of quality. You can save everywhere – on materials, labor force, timing. And at the same time show off with a beautiful facade. The fate of the home after the sale, usually, developers are not interested”, – says one of the market participants. Opportunities for theft and “savings” it would be much less, if we were building typical technological cottages, where the quality is largely predetermined, but it often happens like this, that every house – independent creativity of individual builders.

Inhomogeneous quality

In cottage settlements, quality “walks” from house to house. It often depends not even on the developer, but from a specific foreman. And it is better for the customer to change the engineering systems installed by the company before the start of the operation of the house..

…The saddest, that the buyer purchases the object, he knows very little about. In fact, cat in a poke. Experts say: the real quality of the finished cottage is incredibly difficult to determine. What materials were used? Was the technology followed? Was the wiring of communications carried out well?? Everything can be checked, only while the house is being built. But after that, how is it built, and the walls are plastered, it's very difficult to find out – you won't open the wall.

We invite an expert

The service of a construction expert is not that expensive. Usually a specialist visit, armed with a laser ruler and a wealth of personal experience, costs on average 350-500 dollars. After a two-hour inspection of the house and studying the drawings, the specialist will tell a lot of interesting things about the house and discover those shortcomings, who are non-professional, what is the buyer, would never have noticed. Usually you have to pay extra for drawing up a written report 100-200 dollars. For a more in-depth examination, you can call a team of experts – it will be worth the order 5 dollars per square meter of cottage. Specialists will come, armed with moisture meters, as well as non-destructive testing devices, allowing using acoustic and electromagnetic waves to measure the grade of concrete or stress in the reinforcement. If necessary, experts will also resort to “destructive” methods: dig out the foundation, to check waterproofing.

However, and this is not a panacea. Experts can discover a lot, but admit, that they are not wizards either: “When the facades are finished, and the walls inside are plastered or upholstered with clapboard, then many things are no longer possible to check without opening the walls and roof. Need control during construction”.

Ten rules for the correct purchase

When buying a cottage, the buyer usually focuses on the place and site, design and layout of the house. While the main “mines” buried in the construction industry. What should a man do, who buys a house without involving experts? What to look at, to get at least some impression of the quality of construction? For those, who stayed with the cottage “one on one”, we give a small instruction.

1. “We go down to the basement, go up to the attic, go to the boiler room”.
These are the most problematic areas of the house.. Basement water – the disaster of hundreds of modern cottages. This is due to poorly done waterproofing.. Going down to the basement, should find out, is there water and how wet are the walls. You need to look especially carefully in the corners.. A trip to the attic sometimes allows you to notice elementary flaws in the roof.: it can be trivial to leak. The house often looks like candy, but before the boiler room “beauty” often does not reach. It is there that you can see the house without embellishment..

2. “Checking windows”.
At least the windows must be opened and closed.. One of the criteria for the correct shrinkage of the house can be the free opening of windows and doors.. Moisture often gets into the chambers of insulating glass units, which can also be noticed by an attentive eye.

3. We look – "Evenly crooked".
Accuracy of construction and flatness of surfaces – one of the main screening criteria at home. For the developer, the easiest way to hide the ends in the water – plaster all the unfinished. With a simple tool (building level) can see, Are the walls evenly erected and parquet laid.

4. “We use a moisture meter”.
When examining a wooden house, first of all, worth checking, how is the tree dried. You can measure the moisture content of wood using a moisture meter: for laminated veneer lumber, it should not exceed 14-16%, for regular timber or round logs – no more 16-22%. The color of the wood must be uniform. The presence of spots and blackness may indicate that, that the house has not been treated with antiseptics or special compounds.

5. “We test all systems”.
Entering the house, ask to include everything: electricity, heating, water and so on. After a while, you can touch the batteries and understand, Does hot water reach everywhere. We must try everything to the maximum. Any refusal to turn on any of the systems should alert.

6. “We require project documentation for the house and all documentation for engineering systems”.
It seems to be easy, but in most cases the developer cannot provide it. All documents must be required – contracts with companies, installed engineering systems, as well as certificates, instructions for use and warranty cards. It is also necessary to obtain all communication wiring diagrams. – electricity, water, heat, gas. Surprisingly, even in expensive cottages, the developer may not know, where his cables and pipes run. Ignorance of this can greatly complicate the elimination of a possible breakdown in the future.: in search of the right wire, it is easy to break half a house. Besides, it is important to obtain technical specifications for the connection of communications. If there are no such documents, then after a while it may appear, that the connection to the backbone was illegal, after which you can be disconnected from it.

7. “Buying a house in early spring”.
Most of the imperfections come out in winter.. In cool weather, you can actually check the heating system.. And the spring melting snow – excellent exam for roofing and waterproofing systems at home.

8. “Talking to neighbors”.
“After buying the cottage, I learned from the neighbors, that the house was originally built for sale. And what insulation, brick and everything else they almost sold by cars to the left. That used slate was put on the roof. Almost everything had to be redone: walls, floors, window, the roof. We have already invested so much money in two years, what, seems, it was easier and cheaper to build a house from scratch”, – says one of the customers.

9. “We go to the local administration”.
When communicating with local authorities, useful things may become clear. For instance, that for each house in the village there is only 5 kW of electricity. Or that main gas is expected only in five years. by the way, one large company recently sold a cottage with gas heating. And six months later, the new owner found, that he has no main gas: an enterprising developer just dug in a few gas cylinders on the site. A timely visit to the administration could reveal this trick. Communication with the authorities will help and adequately assess the development plans of the surrounding area – road construction, gas pipelines, transformer stations, shops.

10. “We look at other objects of the developer”.
Houses already built can provide a wealth of information about a developer's experience and the average quality of their properties.. Communication with buyers of previous houses will allow you to find out the future reaction of the developer to complaints: whether he will rectify the found deficiency or after the sale he will never pick up the phone again.

Found deficiencies or lack of any documents – reason to think, is the house so good, as well as an argument for lowering prices when bargaining with a developer.

Valery Eugene, developer (Kiev)

Edition: Real Estate World
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