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I know this has little to do with dealing with realtors, banks, etc; but has more to do with tips on considering what house or unit to buy, so if you're not interested in that, just skip this:
Before John and I rented our house, we asked the owners if we could take room measurements BEFORE we considered renting the unit. It took us only about an hour. I think the landlord liked that because it showed them we were dead serious. Being a retired architect and us having specific furniture that we wanted to accomodate, we wanted to guarantee that all of our most important pieces would fit properly before we took the contract.
We noted the room sizes, locations and sizes of windows and doors, closet spaces, ceiling and wall fixtures, appliances, hook-ups and electrical outlets. We even drew elevations and took measurements of kitchen cabinets. We had set specific "deal breaking" requirements for total home square footage, storage space and usable kitchen countertop surface and kitchen storage capacity. Before we even signed a rental contract, we had placed all our furniture onto a Autosketch floor plan.
As an architect, I'm also acutely aware of things such as house/room orientation. Which rooms are going to really heat up in the summer? Which are going to be the hardest to cool? Which are going to be too dark, too cold, etc? How are the windows laid out, so if the a/c breaks down or if central air is too pricey, how will the house cool off best "passively"? Are windows double-glazed, etc? Energy costs over the long run of home ownership can be enormous!
Another reason to lay out the rooms is to find out storage capability. How much square footage do you have for all your clothes and junk? At the time, we even had measured the amount of our current clothes space and set a requirement for the house we rented. Guess what? Even having done that we STILL put extra clothes out in our now "unusable" two-car garage.
Do not forget light fixtures, electrical outlets, appliances and hook-ups. In this Energy and Technological Age, these things can really impact your lifestyle, if those items are missing from your home or are poorly located.
All of this was only for a rental. If I'm going to be BUYING something, I'm certainly going to go through AT LEAST all of that, if not more.
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An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he, for some reason, thinks it would be a good idea to give them." - Andy Warhol
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