[blparent] Advice: buying a house

Sun May 6 23:15:52 UTC 2012

Congratulations on becoming home owners. I am completely willing to talk
about the process as a blind person, but you may also wish to consider if
home ownership is really for you. I sure liked calling the land lord when
the plumbing or the roof were leaking. I highly advise joining the blind
handyman list because they are a wonderful source for how to fix or build
anything.

So, back to actually buying a house. It is normal to have your realtor drive
you around. My husband drives and we still sometimes got into one car with
the realtor to drive to different sites. It is a better use of your realtors
time to go to several houses at a time. Please also remember that your
realtor is also a sales person who makes her money on the commission. No
matter how nice she is, your best interest will come after her own.

This was not available back when I was house hunting, but I had an o&m
lesson a couple of weeks ago and we used Google maps a lot. It will
apparently show bus routes and green spaces for parks along with all kinds
of other information. If your realtor is willing, or perhaps you have enough
site to access this, you could really use this tool to check out important
information about transportation.

Look at your finances and know how much money you really have for changes
you may need. If you find the perfect house, but the yard is not fenced you
may have to walk away if you have to have a fence and you do not have money
set aside for that. Paint can also be an issue. The cheapest paint is a flat
paint that is not only not washable, but picks up marks easily. I am sure
that I touch my walls more just as part of staying oriented or in reaching
for light and fan switches than a sighted person does. You may want to
consider repainting, at least the high traffic areas, with a washable paint.
This will be easier and cheaper before you move in.

One of the things I do not like about my house is that the room my two
younger sons share upstairs can not be monitored easily by sound. I have to
go upstairs and down the hall to get close enough to really hear what is
going on. It would sure be easier if I could check on them more subtly and
often as I go about the course of my day. I find that I spend the majority
of my time in the kitchen and laundry room which are the spaces directly
below their room and on the opposite side of the house from the stairs. I
suggest you give some thought to where you will need to be doing your things
and where the kids will be hanging out. It will not be long before your
little one is mobile and taking off for the other parts of the house.

Do as much research as possible ahead of time on line. One thing that I
found useful was to check on the  property taxes for a house and compare
them to the neighborhoods I was interested in buying in.

I think it is harder as blind people to look at houses where people still
live. One thing you may find helpful is to measure the rooms in your current
place and then take a tape measure with you to the houses you are
considering. You have a good feel for how big your bedroom is now and will
know better if the new master bedroom will work if you have those
measurements. Take the measurements for a standard couch and your beds too.

Here is some advise that has nothing to do with blindness and everything to
do with buying a house as a couple. Couples often end up in the house that
is the least objectionable to everyone. You find houses that one or another
of you loves, but the other does not. So you keep looking. In the end you
are both just tired of house hunting and you end up with a house that you
both think is ok, but no one really loves. If I buy a house with someone
else again, it will be a house that one of us, preferably me, loves.
Somebody should get to love anything you spend that much money, time, and
energy on.

That is all I can think of right now. I hope this has been helpful.

Jennifer
-----Original Message-----
From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of jan wright
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 6:53 AM
To: blparent
Subject: [blparent] Advice: buying a house

Hi All,
First, I want to thank everyone who responded to my questions about
bottles and johnny jumper things.
We have a pretty consistent group of parents and child care providers
who --- may not always agree, but give wonderful advice for each
season of our lives. And, we are as diverse as any other parent group:
 from spiritual to not; from crunchy to progressive (those might not
be opposites, but you understand what I mean); from babies to adult
children; from stay-at-home parents  to working parents; ... etc.

So, I thought that I might post here about our "house buying" and ask
for any tips and advice. I have done research, but, there isn't much
from a blind person's prospective. Maybe there doesn't need to be:
because maybe it is not any different from sighted people buying a
house. But, I did have a couple of questions:
1. How did you choose your realtor? We have one of these, already, but
wonder if we  shouldn't have looked farther. DH's boss said that his
realtor would transport him to and from the prospective houses. Is
that normal??? We find that this is one of the most difficult things
to do because paratransit takes so long, we can only see one house
per day.
2. Public transportation is not very good here in Indy. People from
other cities have commented on how fragmented it is. And, there aren't
many sidewalks in residential areas or down busy streets and ... ... a
good shoulder is hard to find. [ARe those words to a country
song?????]  (smile) But, we are trying to find a house that is close
to a bus stop --- and a bus stop that would take DH to work and us
downtown. Sometimes we find a house close to a bus stop, but the wrong
bus stops there.

Any other advice????

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