Guides for new homeowners
The first year in a new home brings jobs you may never have hired out before, from a furnace checkup to a clogged gutter. These guides cover what to do first, what to maintain and when, and how to find a contractor you can trust. If your agent sent you a list of the pros they use, start there.
- What to Do After Buying a House: It lists the jobs for your first day, first week and first month, from the locks to the radon test.
- Home Maintenance Checklist for New Homeowners: It gives a month-by-month schedule for the first year, with a source for every interval.
- Who to Call for Home Repairs: This guide matches each problem to the trade that fixes it, including leaks you can't trace.
- How to Find a Trusted Contractor: Start with people you know, then check the license and look for complaints.
- Questions to Ask a Contractor Before Hiring: These are the questions to ask a contractor and their references, plus the FTC's red flags.
- Should You Use the Home Inspector Your Realtor Recommends?: You can, and this guide shows how to check that the inspector works only for you.
- How to Check a Contractor License in Oregon and Washington: It walks through the free state lookups step by step and says what they don't tell you.
- What a Preferred Vendor List Is: This explains how to tell when a name on a list was paid for.
Your agent sends you the link, and you open it on your phone without installing anything.