May 27, 2026
Touring Homes Like a Buyer's Agent
What to look at, what to ignore, and the photos to take on every visit.
Showings move fast. The seller's photos look perfect. By the time you sit in your car afterward, half the details have blurred together. Here's how to tour with a buyer's-agent eye so the right home is obvious — and the wrong one is too.
Walk the outside first. Most serious problems live on the exterior: grading that slopes toward the foundation, missing or damaged downspout extensions, soft mortar between bricks, cracked parging, an asphalt roof in its final years (look for granule loss in the gutters), and trees with roots heading for the foundation or service lines. Take photos of all four sides of the house and the roof from across the street.
Inside, follow the same path every time. Start in the basement and work up. In the basement, look at the corners of the foundation walls for efflorescence (white powder), look behind storage for staining or repaired drywall, smell for damp, find the main shutoff valve and the electrical panel (note breaker brand and amperage — Federal Pioneer Stab-Lok panels are a known safety/insurance issue), check the age of the furnace, AC, and water heater (the manufacturer's date sticker is usually on the side), and confirm the water meter and any sump pump are visible and working.
Main floor: open every window and listen for street noise, check that doors close cleanly (out-of-square doors suggest movement), look under sinks for water staining, and run the kitchen tap on hot for 30 seconds to gauge water pressure and hot-water recovery.
Bedrooms and bathrooms: open closets fully, check ceilings under upstairs bathrooms for stains, lift bathmats to inspect the floor around the toilet for soft spots, and ensure every bedroom has the egress window the building code requires.
Take 20–30 photos per showing in a consistent order. Within an hour of leaving, rate the home against your non-negotiable list and write three sentences about what you'd change. After 5 homes, your standards calibrate; after 10, the right one tends to stand out hard.
What to ignore: paint colour, staging furniture, light fixtures, and bathroom vanities. All cheap to change. What to weigh heavily: layout, light, lot, location, and bone structure. All very expensive or impossible to change.
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