[Flofocus]

I've only bought one house, and it was new.

My experience for buying a house was really positive. I participated in the 1st Time Home buyers plan and withdrew my RRSP for my downpayment*. *I used 1/2 my rrsp's for the downpayment and the other half to clear all my debt. Its a tax free loan (as long as you pay it back in 15 years....well its really 17 since they give you a couple freeby years) and they say you have to use it for your downpayment but they dont ask for receipts or anything like that.....oh and with the left over money I had a washroom ruffed in the basement of the new house. Like these guys said, even though I had my house built new, I had my OWN inspector come in and check it out.

Now for talking to the neighboors thing...be careful. I did that and quickly realised these people were 1) General Complainers, 2)Did not know how to use a basic screw driver and screw. The things they compalined about were ridiculous and I couldnt understand why they would wait the 2-3 weeks for the builder to come and fix it when they could have taken 45 min out of thier day to get it done. 1 neighboor had some serious floooding issues, but it was an isolated case with a new, unexperienced contractor. Obviously they do not use him anymore.

On our house delivery they go through the house with you and you mark anything not to your liking. We had 3 or 4 things on the intitial statement, the bathtub knobs were backyards (so cold for hot, hot for cold), the pot light in the front entrance outside was not installed properly, the living room window had a crack in the plastic, and outside plug beside the walk out basement door did not work.

The builder came by about 3 weeks later to fix these things....everything was already fixed by me or my father except the Window crack...and guess what they fix it with...Polyester and fiberglass!! lol. Now I know some of you are gonna say "Well thats what the builders warranty is for, blah, blah, blah" I understand that and that is why we marked it on the warranty sheet anyways. There still a paper trail that they f***ed up somewhere along the line, so its covering my ass for anything that could happen in the future.

Im still waiting for something major to happen, I'll give the house a few years and see what that brings!


Good luck! If you have any questions about the HBP, PM me!