You thought buying a car was complicated! For anyone wanting a checklist (who doesn’t love a checklist) here is basically mine so far:

• Open inspection
• Family inspection / Attempted building inspection
• Check public transport timetables and/or traffic
• Pest inspection
• Building inspection
• Quotes on repairs and alterations
• Check heritage listing
• Check zoning for the area and surrounds
• Council check for previous development applications* (see below)
• Council check for proposed development applications
• Check council codes to see if any planned modifications will have a chance of approval
• Survey inspection and verification (if there is even one post-1881)
• Sewerage and other utility diagrams and connections (and possibly easements)
• Solicitor contract inspection
• Prepare a solicitor/conveyancer to do the conveyancing
• Alteration of contract terms (land tax, mistakes, settlement time)
• Talk to mortgage providers to get pre-approval and negotiate rates
• Understand and compare loan rates, structures, flexibility and features
• Decide whether rates are going up or down over the next 30 years
• Decide whether house prices in the city, suburb and street are going up or down over the next 10 years
• Organising a cheque to pay the deposit on the day of the auction

Exhausting and risk-laden probably sums it up the best. I don’t know how some people move house every year or two!

* On another note Burwood Council (and most impressively most councils) has an online DA system. There is a very simple little hack to get development applications from further back in time. That highly disguised “num_days” parameter can be changed to whatever you like. Maybe 1800 works well?