Buying New or Relatively New? Here is What to Look for Before Making an Offer.
Floors
1. Everyone knows that stainless steel appliances are state of the art in the construction and development industry. When shopping for a new home or condominium, look for stainless steel appliances. They paid more for them!
2. Don’t forget to bring a hard rubber hand ball or marble. Roll it along the floors in several different directions. Does it pick up speed while moving away from you or stop and then roll back directly into your hand? If the ball is thrown out 5-10 feet the chances are that you have a reasonably flat or level floor.
3. Check the flooring for large gaps between pieces of the flooring material. Any gap is unacceptable for new flooring and so a floor without evidence of gaps, especially one 3 or 4 years old is a terrific sign. It probably won’t gap. This hardwood floor installer was a smart guy.
Plumbing
1. New homes, condos, and rehabs should be equipped with booster pumps at the cold water main. It’s so exciting for Tomacor inspectors to discover these pumps and note that they are working at maintaining the building’s water pressure. This $5,000 piece of equipment is worth every nickel if you’re buying a top floor condominium or if you want good water pressure in your master bathroom shower. Even though the building code is a minimum standard, these pumps on the cold water main are often times not installed.
2. A second, simple indicator of quality plumbing involves nothing more than turning the hot water spigot in the tub on and off in fast succession. These better quality condominiums will take the test without any noise while the lesser quality will make thumping or banging sounds in the walls. This problem is called water hammer and is usually corrected by opening the drywall and repairing the piping.
3. Finally, warm shower water at the shower nozzle should not begin to fail or drop in their water pressure when the hot water in the sink or vanity basin in turned on or the toilet flushed. Bring a flashlight and examine the water pressure in the shower. A few of the recently built condos have compensated for this potential drop in water pressure by installing booster pumps or bigger water service lines. It’s a good thing if your water pressure doesn’t drop.
Look for these things and other quality assets during your condominium purchase.