Finding some good housing can feel like a bit of a pipe dream these days, and that means when we do manage to score a place of our own, or with our partners, it’s a time to celebrate!

As a first time buyer, or even a renter, there’s some things to know for good maintenance and a long tenancy. If you find any of these warning signs in your new home, be sure to look into them as soon as you can. It’ll do your physical and mental health better in the long run, and you don’t want to have to fork out any extra money when something gets too bad.

Find Out: Are You in a Safe Location?

Weather can be extremely unpredictable and dangerous these days. Whilst it has always been a hazard for people living on the ground, it’s been featured more and more in the top news spots this year.

One thing that’s good to look into is whether or not you’re in a flood zone. If you’ve bought a house without knowing this to begin with, you may have to take more time preparing for any possible disastrous future events. Plus, your insurance costs may seriously rack up of because of this, although that usually means it’ll be more out of your price range! Take this as a warning sign you need to stay away from the house in your buying plans.

You should also look out for signs of pests, as any infestations aren’t something you deserve to put up with when you’re on your quest for independence and standing on your own two feet. Start off with the hardest thing to look out for: hollow sounding door frames and wood supports when you tap on them are a sign there’s termites in your structure, but you can always get a second opinion as this isn’t too much of an obvious sign. On the other hand, droppings and actual cockroaches are always easy to spot.

Find Out: Is It All Up to You?

This is the main responsibility part of owning a new home. If you’re under a landlord, or you’re surrounded by neighbours, make sure you know where your boundaries are and where they end. A garden area outside the house may not be yours to take care of, or the fence that’s falling over in the backyard may be a joint responsibility, so if you’ve been looking into buying a condominium for example, know where the common areas are and what you’re legally allowed to do with them.

This is not only important for you to be sure you’re not wasting your time, but it’s also important for the community that can develop around these kinds of properties. You don’t want bad relations with the neighbours because you’ve taken over their ‘jurisdiction’ or you’ve added an extension that’s intrusive on their area.

Repair: Cracks in Your Foundation

When we buy a home, there’s almost a 100% guarantee it’s been built on a foundation. This makes sure subsidence doesn’t affect the structural integrity, and a house lasts a lot longer as a result. However, that doesn’t mean your foundation itself is free from taking damage from the outside world. These don’t have to be literal cracks when you discover them, but they can quickly turn into them. Foundation damage can turn into significant harm down the road, so putting a stop to any threats when you first discover them is essential.

Damage can come from the environment around us, as well as our own habits that we don’t even realize! For example, if you’re a keen gardener and watering the plants is a usual activity for you, in areas where the rainfall is heavier, the soil expands and moves a lot faster and puts pressure on the foundation of a house. The concrete cracks under this extra weight, as anything would!

Similarly, nature likes to reclaim the land around it, so tree roots can also be incredibly invasive here. They suck the moisture out of the soil, causing it to deflate and often shrivel up, meaning the structure of a house can move as a result. This is where watering comes into good effect, as keeping the soil hydrated means there’s nothing for the roots to suck dry.

Repair: Condensation on the Windows

This is a sign that the insulation in your house isn’t up to scratch, and that there could be too much moisture in the air. This both ruins the atmosphere in the summer and winter months, by making your rooms too hot or too cold, and means mold is more likely to grow. But it’s not likely for window glass to fail when they’ve been installed properly, and indeed you only have about a 1% chance your home will overheat, leak, or freeze because of this. It’s still incredibly important to keep an eye out for however!

If you have a double pane window, and it’s fogged up at the bottom, it’s a warning sign you’re going to need to fix pretty quickly. If not, you can accidentally foster a harmful environment for bacteria, and it doesn’t add to the value of your newly bought home to have black and green spots over the ceiling and the window pane. The seal could be broken, or the direction the house is facing could mean the sun is putting too much heat pressure on your glass.

If you have some money left over from a sale, and you want to make sure you don’t have to deal with any repairs, you can buy new windows from the get go and make sure they have a good decade’s warranty on them. To protect yourself from costly repairs or replacements due to normal wear and tear, consider getting a home warranty for your appliances.

So if you’ve managed to buy your own home, and now you’re proud of what you have and where you live, you’re going to need to look after any areas in which things can go wrong or break down. How perfect would necessary house repairs be just in time for Christmas, hey?