chhotii

Lessons learned:

* What you are looking for as a possible buyer is quite different from what you are looking for as a possible renter. Keep those differences firmly in mind.

* Do not make an offer before taking your own flashlight and having a look for yourself at the basement, storage space, utilities areas, etc. It's a big waste of $400 to delegate that to the home inspector when you could've looked and had the queasy reaction for free at the Open House.

* Shared common roofs are an uh-oh. Yeah, a lot of condo associations have to deal with these entanglements. OTOH, there are a lot of building out there that don't have this issue. (Not necessarily a no-no; could be that the neighbors keep their roof in pristine condition, and/or there is a written agreement. But, it should give one pause.)

* This has been an exceptionally dry spring. I don't understand it; we did have a lot of snow, and it has rained. But, there's no water in, for example, the basement of the suburban house. Thus, you might think we have a dry basement, hah-hah! This year, one has to look harder for signs that there may have been issues with water in years past.

* Look, with great interest, at things like number of units, percentage of owner occupancy, whether it requires a portfolio mortgage, days on market, and all that other mystifying data on the MLS sheet.

Now that I have a much better idea of what I'm doing, onwards!