First-Time Investor Needing Advice

[Janel Duran]

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some advice and tips. I’m trying to buy my first rental property, and since I’m completely new to real estate investing, I feel like I’m learning everything as I go and navigating almost blindly.

I’m working with a real estate agent, and we found a property that looked good financially. I went to see it and liked it, but during the visit I noticed there was no running water. The showing was done by another agent from my agent’s team, not by the main agent I had been communicating with.

Even so, I decided to submit an offer. We negotiated with the seller, everything went well, and I was put under contract.

After that, I hired a home inspector recommended by my agent’s team. During the inspection, we discovered that the house does not have proper water or electrical connections. The water heater is disconnected, the baseboard heaters are not connected to electricity, and overall the property is basically not livable right now. The only electricity working is for the ceiling lights.

Now I feel like maybe the inspection should have happened after the seller fixed or connected those essential systems, so the inspector could properly test everything and include it in the report. My concern is that if the seller connects everything later, I may have to pay for another inspection to verify it all works correctly.

Honestly, I’m starting to feel like my agent is not guiding me properly. My loan type doesn’t even allow non-livable properties, so I’m wondering why this issue wasn’t identified earlier in the process.

Should I consider changing agents? What tips would you recommend for property walkthroughs and inspections? What are the main things I should always check before going under contract?

Thank you in advance for any advice.

[Robert Ellis]

Quote from @Janel Duran:

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some advice and tips. I’m trying to buy my first rental property, and since I’m completely new to real estate investing, I feel like I’m learning everything as I go and navigating almost blindly.

I’m working with a real estate agent, and we found a property that looked good financially. I went to see it and liked it, but during the visit I noticed there was no running water. The showing was done by another agent from my agent’s team, not by the main agent I had been communicating with.

Even so, I decided to submit an offer. We negotiated with the seller, everything went well, and I was put under contract.

After that, I hired a home inspector recommended by my agent’s team. During the inspection, we discovered that the house does not have proper water or electrical connections. The water heater is disconnected, the baseboard heaters are not connected to electricity, and overall the property is basically not livable right now. The only electricity working is for the ceiling lights.

Now I feel like maybe the inspection should have happened after the seller fixed or connected those essential systems, so the inspector could properly test everything and include it in the report. My concern is that if the seller connects everything later, I may have to pay for another inspection to verify it all works correctly.

Honestly, I’m starting to feel like my agent is not guiding me properly. My loan type doesn’t even allow non-livable properties, so I’m wondering why this issue wasn’t identified earlier in the process.

Should I consider changing agents? What tips would you recommend for property walkthroughs and inspections? What are the main things I should always check before going under contract?

Thank you in advance for any advice.

I actually kept coming back to one sentence in your post.

You mentioned that your loan doesn't allow you to buy a non-livable property, but you only found out the house was essentially uninhabitable after you were already under contract. To me, that's the part that would be the hardest to get past—not because the house has problems, but because it sounds like you were making decisions with incomplete information.

The encouraging part is that you found all of this during your inspection period instead of after closing. If this deal falls apart, that's frustrating, but it's also exactly why inspection contingencies exist. Better to uncover these issues now than discover them after owning the property.

I'd probably spend less time wondering whether this is the right house and more time figuring out whether you still trust the people helping you evaluate the next one. That answer will likely matter long after this particular deal is behind you.

I'm curious—has your agent acknowledged that the financing and the property's condition weren't aligned from the beginning, or are they still encouraging you to move forward with this deal?