Andrew Alpaugh Home Buying

You've found the house. The seller accepted your offer. You're riding that high for about 48 hours — and then the inspection rolls around and suddenly you're standing in a crawl space with a flashlight wondering what you've gotten yourself into. I've been there. And what I wish someone had told me beforehand is this: the inspection isn't a formality. It's your last real chance to protect yourself. Here's what most buyers get wrong about this stage of the process. You're Not Just Buying Peace of Mind — You're Building Your Negotiation Case A lot of buyers treat the inspection report like a pass/fail grade on the house. It's not. It's a detailed inventory of everything that needs attention — and a skilled buyer uses that inventory strategically. Inspectors will flag items in categories ranging from safety hazards to cosmetic wear. The trick is knowing which items actually matter for renegotiation versus which ones you quietly acce...

What Your Home Inspector Won't Tell You (But You Need to Know) You've got your offer accepted. You're excited. You schedule the inspection and figure that's your safety net — if something's wrong, the inspector will catch it. Done and done. Not quite. I learned this the hard way. A home inspection is valuable, but it's not the comprehensive protection most buyers assume it is. Here's what you actually need to understand before you walk into that inspection — and what to do after you walk out. Inspectors Observe. They Don't Investigate. A standard home inspector is looking at visible, accessible components on the day they visit. They're not pulling permits, they're not running the dishwasher for 45 minutes, and they're almost certainly not climbing into a crawl space that's half-flooded. They'll note what they can see and hedge on everything else. That hedge language matters. Phrases like "recommend further evaluation ...

First-Time Buyer Mistakes That Cost Thousands — And How to Avoid Them Buying a home is probably the biggest financial move you'll make. And the frustrating part? The most expensive mistakes are almost always the ones nobody warned you about. I'm Scott Andrew Alpaugh, and after going through the home buying process myself — and watching friends make the same painful errors — I want to lay out the ones that genuinely hurt your wallet. Skipping Pre-Approval (Or Confusing It With Pre-Qualification) These two things sound similar. They are not. A pre-qualification is basically a lender taking your word for your income and assets. A pre-approval means they've actually verified your documents. In a competitive market, sellers and agents take pre-approval seriously. Pre-qualification is largely ignored. Get the real pre-approval letter before you start touring homes. It also forces you to confront your actual budget before you fall in love with something you can't affor...

The Home Inspection Isn't Just a Formality — Here's How to Use It Right Most buyers treat the home inspection like a box to check. You hire someone, they walk through the house for a few hours, you get a PDF full of photos and bullet points, and then… you kind of skim it and move on. Maybe you ask for a few repairs. Maybe you don't. That's leaving serious money — and protection — on the table. After going through the process myself and watching friends navigate their own purchases, I've learned that the inspection phase is genuinely one of the most powerful tools a buyer has. Used correctly, it can save you thousands of dollars, prevent a catastrophic mistake, or give you real negotiating leverage. Here's how to actually use it. Show Up in Person This sounds obvious, but a surprising number of buyers don't attend their own inspection. Don't do that. Walk the house with the inspector for the full two to three hours. Ask questions. When they flag...

Making your first offer on a home feels significant in a way that's hard to explain until you've done it. You've been looking at listings, doing walkthroughs, imagining furniture placement — and now you're about to write a number on a piece of paper that could define the next thirty years of your financial life. Most first-time buyers get told what to offer. Almost nobody gets told how to think about it. Here's what I've learned — and what I wish someone had explained to me plainly before I went through it. The List Price Is a Starting Position, Not a Verdict Sellers set list prices based on what they hope to get, what their agent suggests, and what comparable homes sold for — in that order. The list price is not a fact about what the home is worth. It is an opening position in a negotiation. This sounds obvious. It stops being obvious the moment you fall in love with a house and start rationalizing why asking price is actually fair. That's the mom...

The number on the listing sheet is not what buying a home costs you. This isn't a complaint — it's just reality, and it catches first-time buyers off guard more than almost anything else in the process. You budget for the down payment, you calculate your monthly payment, and then you get to closing and discover there's a list of additional costs that nobody handed you a flyer about. Here's what's actually on that list. Closing Costs (2–5% of the Loan Amount) Closing costs are the collection of fees paid at the time of closing to the various parties who made the transaction happen: the lender, the title company, the county recorder, the attorneys (depending on your state). In South Carolina and most states, buyers typically pay between 2 and 5 percent of the loan amount in closing costs. On a $300,000 home with a $240,000 loan, that's $4,800 to $12,000 — due at closing, in addition to your down payment. What's in there: Loan origination fee — ...