See homes properly

Walk into a showing with a system, and leave with notes you can actually compare.

The idea

You get about twenty minutes in a house and you'll make a several-hundred-thousand dollar decision partly on how it felt. That's unavoidable and not entirely wrong — but the feeling is heavily influenced by staging, weather, and what time of day you came. The system is what protects you from it.

Look at what photographs can't show. Smell first, before your nose adjusts — damp, smoke, pets, air freshener working hard to cover something. Sound: stand still for thirty seconds and listen for traffic, trains, the upstairs neighbour, the furnace. Run a tap and check pressure. Notice where the light actually falls at the hour you're there, and think about what that means at seven in the morning in December. Open closets and look for storage, because nobody stages storage. Look at the neighbours' yards, which tell you more about a street than the listing does.

Ask, and know who to ask. The listing agent works for the seller — perfectly reasonable questions to ask them are factual ones: how old is the roof, when was the furnace replaced, what's included, why is the seller moving, have there been offers. Interpretation and strategy go to your own agent.

Warning signs, by system. You aren't inspecting the house — that's Week 10 and it's a professional's job. You're deciding whether it's worth paying for an inspection. What's worth noticing:

Foundation and basement — cracks that are horizontal or stepped rather than fine and vertical, doors that don't close square, floors that slope, efflorescence or staining at the base of walls, a sump pump and whether it looks used, and any smell of damp.

Roof — age, curling or missing shingles, the state of the eavestroughs, and whether downspouts push water away from the house or into it.

Windows — fogging between panes means failed seals, and a house full of them is a real number.

Electrical — open the panel door and look. Fuses rather than breakers, or a panel that's visibly overcrowded, is worth knowing about early because it can affect insurance.

Plumbing and mechanical — what the pipes are made of, and the age of the furnace and hot water tank. Both have finite lives, and finding two at the end of theirs is a near-term cost rather than a hypothetical one.

Age isn't quality, but it predicts failure modes. A 1970s bungalow and a 2015 build are not better or worse than each other. The bungalow has a bigger lot, a mature street, and systems that are somewhere in their second life. The new build has efficient heating and a warranty, on a small lot with a young tree and possibly a developer's landscaping still to come. Look for different things in each.

Cosmetic versus structural. Paint, flooring, fixtures, countertops and cabinets are cosmetic — expensive, but predictable and optional. Foundation, roof, windows, electrical panel, furnace, and anything involving moving a load-bearing wall are not. An ugly house with sound bones is a much better buy than a beautifully finished one with a wet basement, and it usually prices as though the opposite were true.

Go back at a different time. If a home makes your shortlist, drive the street on a weekday evening. Parking, noise, and traffic are completely different at 6pm than at a Sunday afternoon showing.

Edmonton specifics

This is the densest local section in the course, because these are the things that actually go wrong here.

Clay soil and foundations. Much of Edmonton sits on clay, which swells and shrinks with moisture. That makes grading, downspouts, and drainage genuinely predictive of foundation trouble rather than a box-ticking exercise. Walk the perimeter: does the ground slope away from the house? Where do the downspouts empty? Is there a sump pump, and does it look like it's been running? Older neighbourhoods with mature trees have the added factor of root systems near foundations and sewer lines.

Radon. Radon is invisible, odourless, and a genuine long-term health risk. Health Canada's guideline is 200 becquerels per cubic metre — above that annual average, they recommend remedial action. Ask whether the home has been tested and whether any mitigation system is already installed. If the home makes your shortlist, testing during the condition period in Week 10 is the natural time to do it.

Furnace and hot water tank age. The heating season here runs long enough that end-of-life equipment isn't a someday problem. Look for the manufacture date on the label and ask when each was last serviced.

Garage, and the alley. Attached versus detached versus none is a January decision. Also look at whether the alley is paved and how the garage is accessed after a heavy snowfall — a detached garage off an unpaved alley is a different proposition in February than it looks in July.

Freehold or condominium? Worth settling before the paragraph below, because it only applies to one of them. In a condominium the corporation insures the building, so its roof, envelope, wiring and the sewer line out to the main are not yours to insure — you carry a unit policy, and the building's coverage is something you read about in the condo documents in Week 9. On a freehold home, all of it is yours. Freehold row housing is common in Edmonton and looks identical to the condominium kind from the street, so ask which one you are standing in rather than guessing from the shape of the building.

Things we already know about the street. Padster computes proximity to major roads, rail lines, and power infrastructure for every listing. When you open a showing checklist from a listing page, anything relevant is added to the top of your checklist automatically — so you know to listen for the train before you're standing in the kitchen wondering what that was.

The worksheet

The showing checklist. One per home. Open it from the listing and the address fills itself in.

Before you go in — address (automatic), date, time_of_day, weather. Record the weather. It changes what you noticed.

Then, rate and note as you walk: exterior and grading · roof, eavestroughs and downspouts · foundation and basement · mechanical, with an age estimate for the furnace, hot water tank, electrical panel and plumbing · kitchen · bathrooms · bedrooms and storage · light and noise · parking and garage · outdoor space · neighbourhood.

Each is a quick rating plus a note. The notes matter more than the ratings — in three weeks "small third bedroom, no closet" will mean something and a score of 3 won't.

Your needs, checked automatically. Every need you ranked in Week 4 appears as its own checkbox on every showing checklist. This is the payoff for that exercise: you find out on the spot whether a home you like actually meets the list you wrote when you were thinking clearly.

- red_flags — Anything that concerned you? Pick from the common ones and add your own. - gut_feel — How did it feel? Record it honestly. It's data, it's just not the only data. - would_offer — Yes, maybe, or no? - photos_taken — Photograph the panel, the furnace label, and anything that worried you. You'll want them later and you won't be able to go back.

Each checklist produces a score weighted toward needs met and red flags found, which feeds straight into next week's comparison.

What this unlocks

Every completed checklist attaches to that listing and shows up in your Favourites and on the listing page. Next week's scorecard is built from them — you won't retype a single thing.

Print it. Three checklists to a pack, clipboard-sized. Taking notes on a phone in an Edmonton winter with gloves on doesn't work, and a seller's agent watching you type is a different dynamic than watching you tick a box.

The information in this course is general education, not financial, mortgage, legal, tax, insurance or real estate advice. Rules, costs and eligibility change and vary by situation. Talk to a qualified professional about your own circumstances.