Possible Help and Theory from a Beginner

[Joshua Watson]

Hello, 

I just wanted to say, i've been looking over real estate for about 6 months. I love it, i've been inside houses and put in offers but I can't seem to land a deal. I've started driving for dollars and cold calling but still struggling. The Main reason for this post is to try and pick up some tips on how to evaluate a property once you're inside.

I look for several things when I enter a house, usually in this order. Let me know if there is anything else I can add to the process. 

1. Walk to each corner seeing if the subfloor waivers or is soft, while looking at the ceiling trying to identify any potential water damage. 

2. Look at door frames and see if they are unlevel and which way they are leaning.

3. Look at all the essential systems. Water heater, AC Unit, Electrical, Plumbing if possible. 

4. Scan Foundation outside and look for anything that looks out of place (still refining what i'm looking for here)

5. If it has a crawl space, I look inside with a flash light a bit and see if I can see any termite tunnels or damage to the under neath.

Let me know if you guys have additional information to add to this. 

Also, A different topic but one I am also interested in, with the unemployment rates so high, and the market so high, it seems like now would be a bad time to enter the market unless the deal was really conservative, do you guys agree?

Thanks!