Let The Home Buyers Beware! Don’t Buy Houses With Hidden Natural Disaster Risk

In spite of, or perhaps because of the present credit crunch, there is an ever growing number of Home Buyer Organisations coming onto the UK market. These are either private individuals or companies who have come to the conclusion that, even with House Prices sinking, it’s still a much safer bet to put spare funds into Properties rather than leave it in a Bank.

The judgement behind this is straightforward enough. Hefty deposits in banks along with any money owned by companies are not covered by government guarantees, so could in theory disappear if the Bank crashes. Properties on the other hand can’t under normal circumstances disappear. It’s also unimaginable that their values will drop to anything like zero, and in the medium to long term, it’s very likely that they’ll recover as the economic climate improves.

But, it’s simply too easy for the House buyers to get carried away, and stock up more problems for themselves. Let’s just pause and consider for a moment about what that phrase “under normal circumstance” means. Just as we see monstrous upheavals in the economic climate, we should also be aware of the potential changes in our real climate due to global warming.

These changes may have a disastrous impact on the value, and even the continued existence of any House you may buy as an investment. The House Buyer who’s buying as an investment or as a safe home for his spare money may be tempted to just look at the results of a good survey which sets out the value and condition of the house along with any present threats that may affect it.

A “real” House Buyer who’s planning to live in the House will look much more attentively at such things as coastal erosion, increased rainfall, old mining works, altitude, present and future industrial, commercial and Infrastructure developments, schooling etc. etc, and make his considered opinion about the effect of these during his lifetime.

Anybody fortunate enough to be cash rich at the moment can be forgiven for keeping their eye firmly on the present credit crunch and its potential consequences. However, when buying Properties as an alternative to money in the bank, you need to treat the due diligence as seriously as though you were going to live in the House.

To paraphrase: Let the Home Buyers beware! When people buy Properties to live in; they make sure of all sorts of things; like present and possible future risks of flood, storm, landslip and other risks. It’s much too easy for those who buy Properties for investment to pay lip service to these aspects.

These sorts of buyers often just look for a call from a property owner in trouble to “Buy House”. They jump on the opportunity with a minimum of effort, and return to running their businesses. However, before I Buy Houses, I take as much care as if I was going to live there myself.