What to Actually Look For at a Showing: A Buyer's Walkthrough Checklist
A showing is short, staged, and designed to make you feel something. Twenty minutes later you are deciding whether to commit several hundred thousand dollars.
The way to use that time well is to know in advance what you are looking for — and, just as usefully, what you can safely ignore.
Ignore the Things That Are Easy to Change
Buyers routinely reject good houses for cosmetic reasons and fall for poor ones because they were well staged. Before anything else, mentally strip the house back.
Ignore: paint colours, flooring, light fixtures, cabinet hardware, the furniture, the smell of baking, the garden's current planting, and the fact that the rooms look larger with a stager's undersized couch in them.
Do not ignore: the layout, the light, the location, the lot, the ceiling height, the window sizes, and the structure. These are the things you cannot change without significant money, and in most cases cannot change at all.
The test: could you fix it in a weekend with a credit card? Then it is not a reason to reject the house — it is a negotiating point at most.
The Structural Walk
Start outside and work in.
Look along the exterior walls from the corner. Sight down the line. Bulges, bowing or waviness suggest structural movement.
Look at the roof from the street. Sagging ridgelines, curling shingles, patches of different colour. Ask the age — asphalt shingles have a finite life and replacement is a five-figure job.
Check the grading. Does the ground slope away from the house, or toward it? Water pooling against a foundation is the most common cause of the basement problems you will otherwise discover later.
In the basement, look at the walls and floor. Hairline cracks are common and usually settlement. Horizontal cracks, stair-step cracks in block, or cracks you could fit a coin into are worth a structural opinion. Look for efflorescence — the chalky white mineral deposit that shows water has been moving through masonry.
Look up at the joists for staining, sistered repairs, or anything cut through for ducting.
The Water Walk
Water causes most expensive surprises, and it always leaves marks.
- Ceiling stains, especially below bathrooms and along exterior walls. A fresh patch of paint on one ceiling area is worth asking about.
- Under every sink. Open the cabinet, look at the base for staining, warping or a suspiciously new piece of wood.
- Around the base of toilets for soft or discoloured flooring.
- Window sills and frames for rot, condensation between panes, or mould at the corners.
- The smell. Musty basements are telling you something even when nothing is visible.
Run the taps. Check pressure with more than one fixture open. Note how long hot water takes and whether it stays hot.
The Systems Walk
You are not inspecting these — you are gathering the questions your inspector will answer.
Furnace and water heater. Find the manufacture date on the label. Both have typical service lives, and a unit near the end of its life is a cost you are inheriting.
Electrical panel. Open it if you can see the label. Note the amperage — older homes may have 60 or 100 amp service, which can be limiting. Look for knob-and-tube or aluminium wiring in older properties; both affect insurability.
Plumbing. Look at exposed pipe in the basement. Galvanised steel is at the end of its life in most homes. In some areas, older properties still have lead supply lines from the street — worth asking directly.
Windows. Are they original? Double-glazed? Fogging between the panes means failed seals.
The Things Only Time in the Room Tells You
Stand still and listen. Traffic noise, a nearby rail line, a highway you cannot see from the front step, the neighbour's dog, a compressor.
Check the light. Which way does the house face? A north-facing living room is dim year-round in this climate. Ask what time the photos were taken.
Open things. Every interior door, a few windows, the closets. Doors that stick or will not latch can indicate frame movement.
Look at the ceilings in the corners — where movement shows first.
Check phone signal. It is a small thing that becomes a daily irritation.
Ask These Questions Before You Leave
- How old are the roof, furnace, water heater, and windows?
- What work has been done, and was it permitted?
- Why is the seller moving?
- How long has it been listed, and have there been offers?
- Are there any known issues with water in the basement?
- What are the annual property taxes and utility costs?
Permits matter more than people expect. Unpermitted work — a finished basement, an added bathroom, a deck — can create insurance and resale problems that become yours at closing.
What Is Worth Walking Away Over
Most findings are negotiating points. A few are genuine reasons to stop:
- Structural movement that a professional confirms is active.
- Persistent water intrusion with no achievable fix — sometimes a function of the lot, not the house.
- Unpermitted structural or electrical work the seller will not resolve.
- Anything the seller refuses to let you inspect.
Everything else — dated kitchens, old furnaces, tired flooring — is a price conversation.
The Part People Skip
Go back at a different time of day, and drive the neighbourhood on a weekday evening and a weekend. The street at 2pm on a Tuesday is not the street at 6pm on a Friday. You are buying the neighbourhood as much as the house, and it is the part you cannot renovate.
Never skip the professional inspection. This checklist is for deciding which homes are worth inspecting — it is not a substitute for one.
Buying in London or Southwestern Ontario? Get in touch and we will walk through it with you.