Due-diligence lists get long because length feels like care. Offers still go out on a photograph. This page is twelve checks that should change the price, the contingencies, or the decision to walk away. If a check cannot do one of those three things, it does not belong before the offer. The long list — fifty items, with owners and dates — is for after acceptance. It lives on the due-diligence article. This page is for the short window in which you are still allowed to keep your pen in your pocket.
Use it beside the underwriting sequence. Education only. Contract law and lender overlays in your state outrank a website.
1. Who is in the building on Friday
Owner-occupied, vacant, and tenant-in-place are three different purchases. A tenant with months left on a lease below the rent you hoped for is not “in-place cash flow.” It is income you must honor and a timeline you do not control. Read the lease before you tour a second time. Confirm the deposit, who owns the appliances in the photos, and whether anyone living there is missing from the lease. A person in a room with no contract is a possession question, not a rounding error. Mark this check as price, term, or pass. Most of the time it is price or pass.
2. Whether a carrier will bind this address
Call a broker with year built, roof year, and occupancy before you decide you love the spread. Non-renewals on a block are a fact you can ask about. If the last owners could not place a policy, your expense line is fiction and your loan is fiction. No bindable landlord policy, no offer. That is a pass, not a negotiation. Write the quote or the refusal in the file with a date. The expense stack treats that quote as a required line, not a vibe.
3. Tax after the deed, not tax in the seller’s escrow
Ask how this county treats a sale. Some assessments reset. Some move slowly. The bill in the listing packet is whatever the current owner has been paying. Price the offer at your tax, or keep a contingency that lets you leave when the estimate arrives. Guessing “it will be a little higher” is how the entire monthly story disappears. Mark it price or term. Do not mark it “later.”
4. Rent you can name, not rent you can imagine
Three leased comps, or the leases in the building, with concessions written down. If you cannot produce them, you do not know the income, and the mortgage calculator cannot save you. It will divide whatever payment you type into whatever rent you type. That is not knowledge. This check is a pass when the rent file is empty, and a price change when the file is full and lower than the flyer.
5. Roof, sewer, and water
These three ignore your ratio. Roof age from the street is a start; permits are better; an inspector is the actual answer, and you may not have the inspector before the offer. So the offer has to keep an inspection contingency long enough to get one, and your price has to assume you have not seen the roof up close. Sewer laterals fail on their own calendar. Water is a question of who pays, whether it is a well, and whether the supply is eating heaters. On a well and septic, plan the inspections inside the contingency, not as a favor the seller might allow after you waive everything.
Lead-based paint disclosure applies to most housing built before 1978. The EPA’s real-estate disclosure page says sellers and landlords give the pamphlet, disclose known lead-based paint and hazards, and share the records they have. Ask for that file before you waive a contingency on an older house. Peeling paint is a different fact from intact paint. Price it or test it. Do not admire the trim and move on.
6. Flood, fire, and wind as premiums
Ask the insurer what they charge for this roof and this distance to brush or water, and ask the lender whether the parcel is in a Special Flood Hazard Area. FEMA publishes flood maps; the cost of a required policy is a carrying cost. A building that needs a flood policy is a different purchase from the same building drawn without one. This check changes price, or it is a pass if the premium eats the reason you liked the building. It is never “we will see at closing.”
7. Rules that can zero the income
Association documents, city rental licenses, rent regulation, and short-stay ordinances. If the thesis is a short stay, read the ordinance and the association minutes, not a forum. If the thesis is a one-year lease, confirm you are allowed to offer one, and whether a certificate or inspection stands between you and a lawful tenant. A building you cannot legally rent is not a rental at a temporarily low yield. It is a building you cannot use. That is a pass, unless the price is for a use you are actually allowed.
For associations, ask for the resale packet, the reserve study, and any assessment the board has discussed. HOA Plainly’s buying guide lists those documents from the association side of the table. Use it as a request list. The reserve study, not the slogan in the listing, tells you whether dues are a temporary coupon.
8. Title, access, and who else has a claim
Order title early enough that a shared driveway, a solar lease, a lien, or an easement can still change the offer. Access that depends on a neighbor’s mood is a price cut or a pass. Do not discover it in a survey exception the week you are supposed to close. The glossary notes that title insurance defends covered defects and does not fix a bad roof. Read the exceptions anyway. The exceptions are where the surprises introduce themselves politely.
9. The block at the hours people live there
Visit in daylight and after dark. Talk to someone who leases on the street, not only someone who sells it. A crime map is a screenshot. Three years of break-ins on the same block are a tenant-retention fact. “Up and coming” is not a line on the expense stack. If the visit changes whether you believe the rent comps, this check is a price change. If you would not send a tenant you like to the block, it is a pass.
10. Who can buy it from you
Name the next buyer before you become the current one: an owner-occupant, a small landlord with ordinary financing, or nobody you can describe. A refinance in eighteen months is not an exit unless you can describe the loan that would exist then, including occupancy. Fannie Mae’s investment-property rules are not the same product as an owner-occupant loan. If the only buyer is a future version of you at a higher price, you are the exit. Mark this pass when you cannot name a buyer. Mark it term when the hold period is the whole point and you can carry it.
11. A contingency you would actually use
Inspection days have to match inspector calendars. A short option on an old building is a way to buy what you did not see. Write credits against specific systems once you have them, and decide now which findings would make you walk. If you already know you will not walk over a failed sewer, the contingency is theater and the price should have included the sewer. Radon and well-water tests belong in the same window when the property has those systems. Radon by ZIP’s buying guide covers testing and contract language from the testing side. Septic and Well Guide’s buyer walkthrough lists the inspections to order on those systems. They are request lists, not a reason to waive the option period.
12. A bad year you can pay for
Before the number goes to the seller, run a year with a long vacancy, a higher premium, and one capital repair. If that year requires cash you would have to raise by selling something else, the offer is too high even when the pretty year works. The scenario simulator will show assumptions you type. It will not know your cash. This check is a price cut or a pass. It is not a pep talk.
How to mark the page
Print the twelve. Beside each, write price, term, or pass. A term is a contingency, a credit, a closing date, or a repair the seller must finish. A blank means you skipped the check. Eight blanks mean you are not ready to send a number someone can accept. Two passes mean you should listen to them.
Then stop. The fifty-item list is how you spend the period you just protected. It is not how you decide the first number. If you want the ratios after these checks survive, build them from the documents, not from the 1 percent nickname and not from a gross rent multiplier alone.
Local contract forms, disclosure duties, and licensing rules control the offer. This checklist does not. When a check confuses you, that confusion is the signal to ask the broker, the attorney, or the inspector before you waive anything.