Master Spreadsheet for Prospective Home Purchase Considerations
- Adam Garrett
- Nov 14, 2022
- 13 min read
Updated: Feb 14
In this link to a Google Sheet, I've created a master spreadsheet for home purchase considerations for buyers.
Since it's a Google Sheet, the Link May Ask You to Sign in to Your Google Drive Account
Don't be alarmed if the link requests for you to sign into Google to see it if you have an account. If anyone knows a better platform to host it that won't scare people that way, please let me know.
Here is the hyperlink above: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PK4gBP1PPaz2b55xDzjnDS8E_m_t3SW9SgopP36kPsE/edit?usp=sharing
Here is my website (homepage) on ScamAdvisor: https://www.scamadviser.com/check-website/adambgarrett.com
For more about me, I have a web page on the subject here: https://www.adambgarrett.com/about-adam
I'm unaware of any publicly available spreadsheet that can come close to being as comprehensive as this one for the task of comparing potential properties (homes) being considered for purchase.
Mostly Applicable Throughout the US & Even Internationally, w/ a SE VA Integration
Why be so Thorough?
A house purchase tends to be one of the biggest purchases of people's lives
According to a survey by Clever Real estate published recently, "Eighty-two percent of home buyers express regrets about their recent property purchase." It's possible to clear up potential dealbreakers before writing an offer, mitigating the likelihood that you'll find out after the fact when you're locked into an agreement and when you may or may not be able to get out of the contract based on contingencies. Keep in mind that while contracts vary, & I've seen otherwise for a contract in a different state, in typical contracts in SE VA like the REIN Standard Purchase Agreement that's common in Hampton Roads, the liability for walking without contractual allowance can exceed the earnest money deposit in some cases if the seller decides to go after more than that, if they don't sign a release and hold harmless provision, and if their damages exceed that amount, including but not limited to attorney's fees, commissions, & more.
Other service providers can be invaluable, such as an appraiser, home inspector, termite/moisture inspector, septic inspector, well inspector, other inspectors, & a real estate agent/broker, but they won't cover everything. A buyer & a seller are the people most personally invested in a home purchase/sale. if you leave it all to others, you are more likely to be disappointed since your personal preferences won't directly match your agent's, nor that of other service providers.
Even investors who buy a dozen or more properties a year will be best served by a checklist of items hyperlinked with where to check on those items prior to completing a purchase rather than relying exclusively on memory & relying exclusively on what they've been taught to look for. Think cost-benefit analysis of the value of your time.
Why Aren't Most Buyers this Thorough?
Many buyers and many buyer's agents aren't aware that a resource like this one exists. If someone doesn't know something exists, they're less likely to come up with their own.
Many real estate agents have difficulty keeping afloat with the time that they have. Per Tom Ferry, "According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), failure is defined as those who get a real estate license and then leave the industry within the first five years. According to them, 75% of real estate agents fail within the first year, and 87% fail within five years."
Successful real estate agents must learn how to "say no". I'm often accurately accused of not doing that which is lucrative enough in terms of cost-benefit analysis, in favor of that which I believe will be helpful, but is not required. That's one of the reasons why my sales volume in 2025 was around 1/3 vs my best year. The year when I did the most volume, I spent substantially less time writing in writing on this website and research. That's despite the fact that I can offer my clients much more educationally and physically today than I could in 2020. In real estate, it seems relatively rare for agents/brokers to spend sufficient time in writing/video production on highly complex subjects where they're able to pull a number of previous resources all together like this one.
How to best use the spreadsheet:
Typically Best for Secondary, Not Initial Narrowing of Properties, & List Provided Below for Initial Checks
The spreadsheet is intended to be used for properties that you are considering seeing in person after weeding through a larger list of properties, and/or to be used after you've seen properties when you're trying to decide on one and looking to not get too many surprises.
I typically recommend that a buyer search (cumulatively across multiple searches if applicable) be 20-50 properties that a buyer weeds through for a smaller list of properties under 20 before adding the # of properties below 20 properties available at a time to the spreadsheet. I also don't recommend that you look through every point of the spreadsheet for 20 properties, only considering a more limited # of issues. Once you've seen at least a few homes and are looking to narrow things down further, that's when you may want to compare a higher % of the columns that are most important to you.
For a smaller checklist before the more comprehensive spreadsheet, I suggest the following:
Home Elements to View Online Prior to a Showing Request
Related:
Edits & Access Are Best on a Laptop or Desktop
This spreadsheet can be accessed from a mobile device, but is best accessed and edited on a desktop/laptop. There's no need to request editing privileges. The link to it is for copying or downloading, not direct editing. See below "Agent Disclosure on Plagiarism".
Related: Google Sheets Basics
Land vs Homes
Some items are specific to homes, thus row 4, and others are specific to land only, thus row 5. I haven't yet designated rows for commercial real estate nor for rentals, but those could come in the future if there's sufficient demand. Please let me know if you'd like to see them.
Related:
Shifting Columns Important to You to the Left
Included in the spreadsheet is row 3, labeled as "Importance to you (1-10, with 10 being important and 1 being irrelevant). After labeling, it's then possible to order by importance for cells in the desktop or laptop view. If a buyer is not concerned about a certain section, or if it doesn't apply and never will, you may want to eliminate the column entirely from your consideration or move it far to the right. Conversely, for those issues that are most important to you, you may want to move them to the left of the spreadsheet.
Note for Adams Clients:
Please don't shift the order of columns to the left of & including "Reviews for builder". Adam has methods of quickly inputting data based on MLS populated info in mass for many properties at once you are considering that is dependent on the order in that segment of the spreadsheet.
How to change the order on a desktop or laptop:
Click on the 1-2 letter name of a vertical column (i.e. "BC", "BQ" etc.). When you do so, the whole column should be highlighted.
Click on the 2-letter name of a vertical column again, this time, holding down on the mouse while dragging the column to the left or to the right. When doing so, be sure to not pass the orange section on the left
3. (If Adam's Your Agent)
Please do not rearrange items to the left of the farthest right orange item & please don't change the order of the orange items if Adam is your agent, since he has created a property view to snyc with the spreadsheet in mass based on that order to however many properties are within one REIN MLS search in less than 1 minute of copying & pasting (which would otherwise take possibly more than 30 minutes if for a dozen properties).
Related: Google Sheets Basics
Agent Disclosure on Plagiarism
If you are an agent, you are welcome to share the spreadsheet with others as long as the title remains unchanged, except for adding, not subtracting, from the title. If you want to make significant modifications to the spreadsheet, my name and the name of my company should remain in the title.
Agent & Buyer's Agent Working Together on Spreadsheet is Best
Spreadsheet Works Best with Buyer & Buyer's Agent Working Together on It
It's ideal for buyer's agents to work with a buyer directly on their spreadsheet with hyperlinks that have been adapted to their local area when that's pertinent and when hyperlinks present in my spreadsheet are too heavily focused on a geographic area other than the buyer's. This one is focused on SE VA.
While I suspect few agents will follow my footsteps, it's ideal if agents also organize an MLS view (if your MLS functionality allows it - not all do) per MLS you have access to that can be mostly copied and pasted onto the spreadsheet directly from a list of homes, even if you have to tweak it some every time like I do based on fixed MLS spreadsheet form columns that can't be changed.
Importance of Not Getting Too Cocky Via Online Information & of Not Buying Solo in Most Cases
As I go over in more detail in The Importance of Choosing a Great Buyer's Agent, this spreadsheet, even when combined with other locally unmatched educational resources for buyers (i.e. those labeled as unmatched in related articles at the bottom of this article), is insufficient to mitigate buyer's remorse if you try to do it all alone. You'll typically need a team, & who is part of that team will depend greatly on the situation. It typically starts with a buyer's agent, & a great buyer's agent often has options for you for other members of your team (sometimes affiliated and sometimes completely unaffiliated), such as lenders, home inspectors, termite/moisture inspectors, surveyors, septic inspectors, contractors, closers, & well inspectors. Sometimes there are other service providers, pertinent resources, & sometimes even direct assistance (a, b) for helping a buyer with credit and budgeting.
If your agent is more knowledgeable than most about home buying or owning programs (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), and doesn't lock you into using their lender without an option to use other lenders, I have seen where that 1 decision had a value (from federal grant funds that were exclusive to a minority of lending institutions) that was more than double the commission that I as the buyer's agent received fully available in equity within 5 years of ownership. In some cases, it means the difference of qualifying or not.
In some cases, a DIY approach vs an honest informed agent can mean the difference of buying or renting, with buying not always being the best decision.
Spreadsheet Best Accompanied by Honest Knowledgeable Buyer's Agent Before Showings
In some cases, a buyer's agent will point out one or more items to buyer clients before they see a house that is a dealbreaker for them that they may not have noticed. By not doing the right research and not asking the right questions of the listing agent, a buyer can waste their time, & in some cases, the wrong approach at the property or the wrong approach in discussion with the agent can spook a seller or listing agent. Offers are about more than numbers.
One of the most common examples of hidden problems not noticed beforehand relates to flood zones. When properties are in flood zones, I typically do some research and ask some questions based on what's present in the listing and elsewhere.
In one example, the property was very distant from the buyer. I asked the agent some questions about the flood zone I saw it in including about the flooding history. The listing agent responded by admitting that around 5 years prior around $40k in reno was done after flooding of the house. There were already multiple offers at the time of my question, and by asking prior, I was able to save the buyer a long drive, with the other buyers who had made offers unlikely to be aware of the flooding history.
On another occasion, a buyer I was working with informed me that she really liked a listing and at the same time that she was literally headed to the airport to catch a plane to see the property with me. She emailed me (please text if you're in this situation for my fastest responses), and I texted her starting less than 20 minutes later with 3 pictures from my screen from riskfactor.com specific to the property along with the simple question, "Hi ____, I hope that you are doing well. Are you sure that you are OK with the flood zone situation at ____?" That was it. She responded, "Hi Adam that's a game changer for me, I probably should wait and look at something else..." She never got on a plane because of that quick online research.
Related:
Spreadsheet Best Accompanied by Showing & More with Honest, Knowledgeable, Well-Equipped Buyer's Agent
Online checks & listing agent inquiries can only go so far. Some things you &/or your buyer's agent need to see in person. Some well-equipped & great buyers' agents can catch more via video for a buyer than a mediocre agent can with a buyer in person. When no showing is performed prior to making an offer, it drastically increases the probability of contract fall through if a home inspection contingency exists. If no such contingency exists, it drastically increases the probability of buyer's remorse.
Perhaps the most drastic example of the importance of a showing is an occasion where I heard something before I entered the home. As I approached the home, unlocked the door, and opened the door, my worst fears were realized. The pipes in the home had burst, and the high-end home was flooded. The listing agent didn't know, and we happened to be the first who found out. If we had made an offer without a showing but contingent on inspection(s) &/or appraisal, it may have saved us somewhat. Even then, the buyer would still be out of pocket for some substantive expenses, and we could have lost precious market time, with buyers sometimes stopping their search when under contract on a property, the best properties going the fastest, & it not being uncommon for inspectors/appraisers to take more than a week to get to a home. If the buyer had been purchasing in cash without appraisal and without inspection, and if we had neglected to perform a final walk-through inspection, it could have been a disaster.
Here's an example of how I saved a buyer via a showing. The listing agent wasn't responsive regarding what had happened that put the property back on the market following the last contract, and reportedly it was a multiple-offer situation already as we viewed the house. Near the end of the showing the buyer I represented decided that they wanted to make an offer on the home. The attic had scuttle access only. I happen to be one of the low % of agents who brings a ladder and traverses unfloored attics. While the buyer waited below, I went up there. It's unlikely that any of the other agents who had made offers looked up there prior to making an offer. I discovered that the attic was by far the worst part of the house, including lots of rodent feces, mostly missing insulation, knob & tube wiring, etc. Based on that viewpoint, where I took pictures with listing agent passing me permission before the showing to show the buyer, the buyer didn't make an offer.
After showings, having a buyer's agent protecting your interest while navigating offers to win without overpaying (& sometimes drastically underpaying, the difference of which can exceed both agents' sides of commissions at times in my experience), navigating inspections and concessions (i.e. home inspection related concessions, which can exceed both agents' sides of commissions at times in my experience), navigating walk through inspection, closing, & more.
There's a balancing act to play that an experienced knowledgeable agent will likely do much better than >99% of buyers who aren't agents or brokers themselves. In some cases, those who ask for too much are cut out of the deal completely without any notice & without a 2nd chance. I represent buyers and sellers, but never both in the same transaction. I've cut an unrepresented buyer out of the deal before when I have represented sellers and when in the seller's best interest when the buyer made a lowball offer when we had other competing offers. If an unrepresented buyer makes a lowball offer, only to raise it later in the face of competition, they are more likely than most to request too heavy of concessions after contract ratification. I've also done that when representing the seller when the buyer I don't represent made unreasonable concession requests when I had a backup offer ratified contingent on release.
Offer speed is also a significant factor. I have gotten property under contract for a buyer soon after listing only to find out that another better offer came after we ratified, with my buyers getting the house because we ratified the contract before that 2nd offer came. I've gotten property under contract the same day that I showed it to a buyer, the 1st day it was on the market. While not typical of listing agents, I even recall an occasion where a listing agent stated that the main reason why the seller chose another offer over my buyer's, despite not engaging the 1st before mine, was that the other 1 was 1st. Someone who isn't an experienced buyer's agent isn't going to be able to both be very thorough and expeditious nearly as readily as an experienced agent.
Related:
Related Geared Nationally:
Related & Unmatched* (Excepting 2 labeled in black more broad rankings) in SE VA but w/ Much Application Outside SE VA:
SE VA City Information & Real Estate Property Info Spreadsheet
Top 1%** What Adam Offers Buyers
Unmatched Hampton Roads (REIN)* Home Elements to View Online Prior to a Showing Request
Adam is the 3rd generation in a line of award-winning real estate agents serving SE VA. He has served full time at Garrett Realty Partners since May 2014 when he joined the marketing department before transitioning to full-time sales to assist buyers and sellers in February 2015. He believes that an educated buyer or seller makes the best decisions, & is dedicated to helping with that both digitally & on-site physically for buyers & sellers. He's also available for referrals to real estate agents around the globe. In several capacities, his resources & direct offerings for assisting sellers & assisting buyers are either unmatched or are top 1% for the SE VA area, and in some cases, nationwide. Not stopping after closing, he also provides information for tenants, landlords, & homeowners.
Additional Related
* & **
*in Adam's opinion
**in Adam's opinion of quality to support buyers' purchases, not a measure of quantity. For more details on the distinction, see bandwagon effect under the section titled " Biggest 2 Mistakes in Buyer's Agent Choice" in What to Look for in a Buyer's Agent for Your Home or Other Real Estate
In both cases, please share if you see anything that can come close for unmatched items.
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