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6 Things to Consider Before You Buy a Home with a Pool

by SamanthaH
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A pool can be a great way to beat the summer heat and enjoy relaxing days with friends and family. For many people, this is enough motivation to seek out a home with a pool when they’re looking to move. However, jumping in and enjoying a quick dip in your new home’s pool is only a small part of the commitment required to own a pool. In fact, the time and money involved in pool maintenance can be enough to make an otherwise great home unenjoyable. To ensure you’re ready for pool ownership when you’re buying a home, here are six things to keep in mind.

1. Know the Age of the Pool

As pools age, they often require expensive repairs to the mechanical systems and the pool itself. That’s why it’s smart to find out the exact age of the pool at any home you’re considering. Even if you’re okay with removing the pool when it reaches the end of its service life, removing an inground pool can still cost a significant amount. 

The sellers should be able to provide you with information regarding the original installation of the pool. If they can’t, it may be best to look at another home simply due to the unpredictable costs involved in taking care of an aging pool.

2. Understand Maintenance Costs

If you leave a pool alone, it will quickly become a sludge-filled concrete pond. To avoid this outcome, it’s important to think through the maintenance needs of the pool at the home you’d like to buy. Maintenance costs include both monetary costs and time costs since it can take several hours a week to maintain a pool properly. 

Think through whether you want to hire someone to do the maintenance work for you or if you plan on doing the maintenance yourself. In any event, don’t let the pool sit unmaintained because it can quickly become a safety hazard and a blight on your property.

3. Inquire About Liability Insurance

Accidents in and around pools can happen in the blink of an eye. When accidents happen, you as the homeowner may be responsible for any related medical costs, especially if the injured parties were not residents of your home. 

Your homeowner’s insurance policy should cover these liability risks, but it will likely increase your premium over what you would pay at a similar home with no swimming pool. Whatever you do, do not try to hide your pool from your insurance company. 

If you do, and some type of accident occurs, you could be in for major out-of-pocket medical costs.

4. Inspect the Infrastructure

A pool is not just the body of water that you swim in. The filter, deck around the pool, and security fencing are all important components of any pool installation. A proper pool inspection will look at the condition of every component so that you can know of any potential repair costs ahead of time. 

Pool problems don’t necessarily have to be a deal-breaker, but it’s much better to know what you’re getting into when you’re investing a significant amount of money in a home with a pool.

5. Think About Winterizing

Although the temperatures locally rarely get close to freezing, the winter months are often still too cold to swim. To avoid having to maintain your pool during the cooler months, you may want to think about winterizing. 

Winterizing can take a significant amount of time and money, meaning you’ll need to include it in your budget if you intend to buy a house with a pool. The good news is that the locally mild winters mean that you likely won’t need to drain your pool, which will save a significant amount of water.

6. Family Readiness

A final point to consider before buying a home with a pool is your family’s overall level of readiness. If you have young children who don’t know how to swim, having a pool in your backyard could be an extra burden that you’re not ready to take on. 

If you don’t think that your family can handle this level of responsibility, you may want to hold off buying a home with a pool until everyone can enjoy it equally.

Ask Around

The best way to learn what you don’t know is to ask people who do. This is definitely true of owning a pool. By talking to individuals who already own a home with a pool, you can find out about the highs and lows of pool ownership to see if this is something you want to pursue. This will help make your home search easier and give you much more confidence when you finally find the perfect home.

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