First-time homebuyer mistakes (Seattle)

Most first-time buyers I work with are worried about the wrong things. They lose sleep over whether they’re overpaying by $10k, or whether rates will drop a quarter point the month after they close. (They might! The Fed has never once checked with me first.)

Those are fair questions, but they’re rarely what bites people. The mistakes that actually cost first-time buyers money tend to show up after closing, usually with a contractor standing in the crawlspace and making a face.

I came to real estate from law, with home inspection training on the side, and our team also runs a construction company. So I get to see what these mistakes cost in actual invoices, not internet estimates. Here are the five I see most often, and what I’d do instead.

Mistake #1: Shopping at the top of your pre-approval

Your pre-approval letter tells you the most a lender will let you borrow. It says nothing about what you should spend. Your lender doesn’t know you want to travel next summer, or that the house you love has a 25-year-old water heater. (They also don’t care. That’s not their job.)

Here’s what I ask every first-time buyer to do. Have your lender run your monthly payment in $25k steps, from well below your max up to the top. Look at each number and pick the one where you’d still sleep fine if the furnace died in January. That’s your budget. The top of the letter is the ceiling for the one house that’s worth stretching for.

Then keep cash after closing, because the house will ask for some. For a 1951 house we looked at recently, the honest upkeep number was $4k to $6k a year once you counted the roof, paint and old pipes coming due. A tank water heater alone runs $2.1k to $3.5k from Seattle plumbers right now. If closing takes every dollar you have, the first surprise goes on a credit card.

Mistake #2: Paying for the finishes and ignoring the systems

Quartz counters have never once flooded a basement.

First-time buyers (all buyers, really) fall for kitchens. That’s what staging is for, and it works. But the parts of a house that cost serious money are the ones you can’t see on a tour: the sewer line, the wiring, the roof, the drainage. Here’s roughly what those run, from our own construction jobs and current Seattle contractor pricing:

You can redo counters whenever you want. You can’t negotiate with a clay sewer line after you own it.

So when you tour, look past the shiny stuff and ask the boring questions. How old is the roof? Has the sewer been scoped? Is there knob-and-tube still live in the walls? We price those on the spot when we tour with buyers, because that’s the number that should move your offer. A kitchen you don’t love is a project. A sewer line that’s pretty much cooked is a $20k bill with a deadline.

Mistake #3: Reading the inspection like a report card

First-time buyers tend to grade inspection reports by weight. A 90-item report feels like a disaster. A 20-item report feels like a win. Neither tells you much.

I once opened a report with 28 items on it, for a house that was nowhere near new construction, and my first thought was that 28 was suspiciously low. (It was.) Inspectors are people, and people miss things. We’ve had an inspector miss oil in a sump pump that our own inspector caught on the very same house. So ignore the count and sort the items by cost: which ones are real money, and which ones are a $200 handyman visit.

Read the report for dollars. Most items are maintenance. A few might be $10k problems. Your agent should be able to tell you which is which, and roughly what each one costs, before your inspection contingency runs out.

A word on waiving the inspection. In a multiple-offer situation, keeping an inspection contingency hurts you more than almost any other term. My rough guess is it knocks your competitiveness down by 50 to 70%. So first-time buyers feel pressure to waive it, and some do, blind. Please don’t. Do the inspection before you write the offer instead. You’ll pay for it whether or not you win the house, but you’ll write a clean offer knowing exactly what you’re buying. And get the sewer scope on video while you’re at it.

Mistake #4: Reading the Form 17 like it’s the whole story

(Lawyer hat on.)

The Form 17 is the seller disclosure statement in Washington. First-time buyers often read it as a sworn list of everything wrong with the house. That’s a reasonable assumption, and it’s usually wrong.

Sellers answer the Form 17 based on what happened during their own time in the house. If a previous owner did the renovation, the current owner may have no idea what’s behind the walls. The form also never defines “defect,” and what counts as one legally depends on the facts. So a lot of sellers check “no” on the defect questions, attach their pre-listing inspection, and call it a supplement. It’s standard practice, albeit a bit lazy, and it’s the “safe” move for a seller: they avoid making a statement that could be used against them later and let the inspector’s wording do the talking.

None of that makes the seller dishonest. It means the Form 17 is where your homework starts.

Under RCW 64.06.030, you get three business days after you receive the disclosure to rescind in writing, unless your contract says otherwise. Read it the day it lands, and turn every “don’t know” or vague answer into a question for the listing agent or a job for your inspector. More on how to read one in our Form 17 guide.

Mistake #5: Buying a “starter” townhouse or condo without a resale plan

Plenty of first-time buyers plan to buy something smaller now and trade up in three to five years. That can work. It can also trap you.

Selling costs real money: commissions, excise tax, moving, and usually some prep. On a short hold, those costs can eat most of what you gained. If you only plan to stay a year or two, I’ll usually tell you to rent. (Yes, I say this to people who would otherwise pay me to help them buy. I’d rather you come back in two years and trust me.)

Townhouses deserve a specific warning right now. In Ballard (the 98107 and 98117 zip codes), houses that sold this year went pending in a median of 6 days, and 48% sold over asking. Townhouses in the same zips took a median of 27 days, and only 18% sold over asking. It really is a tale of two markets. Across King County, once you control for size, age, condition, zip code and month of sale, a townhouse sells for about 17% less than a comparable detached house and takes about 74% longer to go pending. Meanwhile, new townhouse listings in Ballard are up 19% this year, against 4% for houses. So when you go to sell a five-year-old townhouse, you’re competing with brand-new ones from builders who can offer incentives you can’t.

(Our numbers, from NWMLS data. Ballard figures are 2026 sales through October 7 and new listings through August. The countywide comparison covers 67,937 house and townhouse sales from January 2023 to October 2026.)

For condos, read the HOA documents before you fall in love: the budget, the reserve study, the meeting minutes, and anything about a special assessment. A low monthly due in a building with thin reserves usually means a big bill is on its way.

What I’d do if I were buying my first house today

I’d pick the monthly payment I’m comfortable with, not the one the bank approved, and I’d keep a cash cushion for the house itself. I’d look at the roof, the sewer and the wiring before I looked at the kitchen. And I’d read the inspection for dollars and the Form 17 for gaps.

Before you look at houses you’d actually buy, come on a learning tour with us. We walk through a handful of homes in your price range, and I point out what’s expensive and what’s just cosmetic, with real numbers attached. As you can probably tell, I nerd out on this stuff. It’s also the cheapest way I know to avoid all five of these mistakes.